


milk and honey

by orphan_account



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: 2ne1 - Freeform, A little, ATEEZ - Freeform, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, BoyxBoy, Domestic, Fluff, M/M, Metaphors, Pentagon, Pining, Roommates, Side Yungi, Thunderstorms, black hair seonghwa, but not as much, cl - Freeform, hwasa - Freeform, literally just seongsang, lots of forehead kisses, mamamoo - Freeform, mention of others, monsta x - Freeform, nothing nsfw, seongsang, soft, yeosang is shy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21924976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: like a gemstone at the bottom of the earth, yeosang had found his treasure, all in the form of a boy with the darkest hair to set under beanies and the prettiest smile that puts the earth to shame. his roses and lilacs, rainbows and coronas, seonghwa was everything yeosang had been searching for, everything he loved and everything he wanted....or, yeosang thinks seonghwa is a little bit sweeter than honey, if he had to say so himself.
Relationships: Kang Yeosang/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 26
Kudos: 111





	1. silence.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [woo_san](https://archiveofourown.org/users/woo_san/gifts).



> hello this is a short little thing before I finish my other aus that I have just sitting in my docs
> 
> pls enjoy!

_before you read! this au is a short made for the loml julie. if you're reading this and you're not julie, please enjoy! the writing style is a little different than my last au, mainly because this was meant for fluff rather than emotional backstory. there’s still some cool stuff in here, but please don’t expect a lot of dreamy metaphors and all that yet, i'm trying to incorporate a few different things to where the scenes are vague, yet somewhat detailed, if that makes sense._

_if it's too vague please let me know! the whole thing's supposed to feel like a memory in itself, i hope i recalled it in a way that works out._

_however! if you are julie, hi, angel! this is for u! it took me so long but i hope you read it and enjoy it and it doesn't disappoint u or else i’ll cry :( my very best friend, i love u, thank u for existing, u make me have brighter days and enjoy life more. we’re a million miles from each other, and i hope we meet soon, but for now, here’s something that i wrote for you for when you want a little bit of seongsang fluff!!! i hope it doesn’t bore you and that you like it <3333 _

_\- mandi_

~♤~

Kang Yeosang was six when he found that he didn’t like to speak with words all that much.

A kid, one who didn’t know any better, and let his finger paints do all of the talking for him in muddy purples and boggy greens. There had always been something about a silent, blank canvas, sitting there and waiting for his voice to transform it, to morph it into his own, that sparked something in him. There was something about a palette of bright colors murmuring to themselves, yellows and oranges ready to create conversations, to introduce themselves, that was so beautiful to him. There was nothing he liked more that running his hand over a surface he was about to paint - the walls in his old highschool bedroom, construction paper, canvas cover, anything - and listening to the whispers underneath his fingertips that made him feel like he was never alone to begin with. It was indescribable, really, how much Yeosang could talk without opening his mouth. 

And it worked out perfectly, because Yeosang never liked to talk, barely even to his mom, or his teachers, or his classmates, or Mingi.

He was the type to not ask for help, to want to study on his own and figure out how things worked by himself. He was the type that dreaded group projects, or to not walk across the classroom to the trashcan to throw away his tissue because he was scared of people noticing him or of the teacher telling him to go back to his seat and send him into humiliation like he sees in the teen movies. He liked to wear black a lot to not be noticed, but sometimes blending in with that specific color backfired, when random people would ask _damn, whose funeral are you going to?_ and he felt even more embarrassed and he thinks that wearing a highlighter yellow sweater instead would have been better.

It felt like that, anyway.

Since he was little, he found it hard to be understood. _No_ , he was not weird or depressed or fucking _emo._ He just didn’t like to talk, is all. Yeosang could be having the best day of his life, but he wouldn’t say anything, or talk about it much if you asked. It was just him. People somewhat got it, people somewhat didn’t. People thought he was weird, people were afraid of him, people wanted to be his friend and people avoided making eye contact with him. Nobody really _got_ him, save for his roommate.

That somehow, ultimately made talking to him the hardest.

Finding someone who was so willing to speak in silence, to talk by just looking at him and arching eyebrows or noticing the smile quirked on his lips, that was so patient with him, even when his world stopped spinning or it was going way too fast, made him think that maybe there was someone for everyone.

Park Seonghwa was more than his rock; he was his waterfall, his stars, and his spring flowers that bloomed when the weather was shitty. He was the brighter side, that made Yeosang think that there was more to life than the normal things that every day brought to him. There was more to painting, going to class, working, doing homework, going to sleep, then doing everything over tomorrow.

There was laughing, or taking naps together on the couch after a long day, or cooking for each other or petting puppies at the adoption center (and dragging him away on the brink of tears when he needed to leave in order for the center to close). There was staying up until 5am talking about everything and nothing in the pillow forts they make with the extra blankets and sheets in the linen closet, and waking up two hours after for their first class of the day, both groggy and grumpy and tired, but at least they were together.

Yeosang thinks that maybe that’s why he likes Seonghwa so much. He was like a key, everything he touched or spoke of or thought about was an unlocked door into an adventure or something that Yeosang could talk about for hours.

And he never did, but the feeling of wanting to relive the moment again through words was enough for him, because it was next to rare for him to want to do things again.

Seonghwa’s room had started to fill with abstract, dreamy paintings confined in the space of an 8x11 universal canvas, different moments with each other put together, a message from Yeosang in each one. He saw one picture and a trillion words, prominent memories of the day as if it happened three seconds before he began to stare at it, admire how Yeosang paints his scenes and everything that they said to each other in the moment. He remembers the beautiful colors of the beach and the pain of the crab pinching his finger when he glances to the right of his window, remembers the crappy pumpkin carvings and the warm sleep couch when he looks at the top of his door. It was nice to take a break from college work and staring at his laptop all day to revisit memories Yeosang had made with him, for him.

Seonghwa remembers a lot of things with Yeosang, and in times like those, he really wishes they could stay roommates forever. He knows that things always change, but he would love to remember even more with him.

And it’s only when Yeosang comes into his room at 7:46pm tonight that he remembers they needed to go out for dinner.

“Oh, hi. Are you already ready?” Seonghwa asks, and his voice sounds like sunlight washing over a lazy river to Yeosang, and he smiles, sees that he had forgotten as he sits in his bed with his laptop in front of him, probably doing schoolwork, and nods.

“I’ll wait. On the couch.” 

“Okay. Your Nintendo’s on the coffee table, where you left it.”

Seonghwa knew many things about Yeosang, number one being his Ninetendo obsession. Yeosang liked things that other people might think are strange. Seonghwa found it interesting how Yeosang could go from playing Animal Crossing and Pokemon to knitting and reading novels under the lamp on the sofa. But he never said anything, never teased him, because he likes discovering new things about him, like when he talks and the world stops so it could listen to the few words he says, or when he’s painting and he looks at his art as if he was looking at all the love in the universe made for him, in the form of deep reds and stark whites. 

Yeosang was interesting.

“Thank you.”

And he wants to tell him not to rush, to take his time because the stars weren’t even twinkling and they had the entire night to be out because it was Friday, but he closes his mouth for what he knows is going to be a while and leaves without seeing what Seonghwa’s face looked like, without seeing how tired and exhausted he was, and flings himself on the couch, right into the peering eyes of his messy easel in the corner of the living room. It was smudged with dried paint, looked like the underside of a highschool student’s desk (except Yeosang didn’t mind touching it), and on it sat a halfway done painting, blank holes within the blues and oranges of one of their many and familiar sunsets, and Yeosang makes a face. Their conversation wasn’t done yet, but he remembers everything and he needs to get it down while it's still in his head. But he knows that if he even tried to get something done before they went out, he would get sidetracked and lose time, or stain his expensive-for-a-college-student button down shirt and he only had a few of these.

So he leaves it alone, hopes that Seonghwa got the message that he wasn’t trying to rush him, and looks somewhere else and decides to see how his town was doing as he reaches over to the coffee table to power up his Nintendo.

And it seems like seconds as he breezes through two town initiatives, when Seonghwa lightly places his hand on the top of his head, onto his crinkled peanut-colored hair, and sends him a soft smile when he looks up at him. He tries not to look at him for a long time; Seonghwa usually dressed nice when the two went out and Yeosang blushed easily, is all. It was one of the things that Seonghwa had learned being with Yeosang for so long, that there were a lot of ways to tell him things without speaking. 

And it worked a lot, especially when Yeosang didn’t feel like talking.

“Where do you feel like going?” Seonghwa asks, and his hickory eyes were the stars as they shone on him, like spotlights, except Yeosang didn’t mind the attention they brought.

He gets up from the couch, and Seonghwa waits for him to shut off his Nintendo before throwing an arm around him. He thinks it's weird how he feels safe, just by being so close to him like this. His chest fills with horizons and sunrises, feeling like he could do anything he wanted to tonight, with Seonghwa beside him. Maybe they would, after dinner.

The two were like that. Spontaneous.

“Can we...get Italian? I want pasta.” Yeosang says, quietly and shy and Seonghwa wants to hold his hand when they leave the apartment together in the short (but meaningful) walk to the car, but he doesn’t. 

“We can. I’m feeling alfredo and tiramisu. And wine.” Seonghwa peers at Yeosang when he leans his head back to give him a look, leading him into the car.

“I’ll drive home. Maybe.” Yeosang says, and Seonghwa’s smile grows into a toothy grin when he closes the door for him, Yeosang can’t help but feel like a child. 

But he knows how Seonghwa is and what he does, so he can’t feel embarrassed. It was just like Seonghwa to be this nice, even to his best friend of three years.

Yeosang looks into his lap and smiles, thinks of how bright it was today before the evening hit and wondered how much greater Seonghwa compared, and waited for him to get into the car. 

And it only takes until the end of their dinner for Yeosang to slip and tell Seonghwa that he was good, right after their conversation about, what? Yeosang can’t remember right now. He seems to forget things when his mind is somewhere else.

 _I’m good?_ he asked, and Yeosang died and was clawing himself into the dirt because holy _fuck,_ that was embarrassing and this is most _definitely_ the reason why he never spoke.

_Yeah. You’re…you’re good._

_What does that mean?_ and Yeosang knows Seonghwa was well aware of what he was doing by the way he shifts his weight forward and rests his chin on his hands, leaning into Yeosang across the table and he thinks that he’s too much, with that snarky smirk in his cherry blossom lips. And the world stops for him, as Yeosang is looking at the amber candle flame lighting Seonghwa’s eyes ablaze in a way that makes him lose his breath, thinks it’s nearly impossible for someone to look so antipodal while being so full. 

He has to look away.

_You know. You k-know what I meant._

And Seonghwa smiles fully, when he’s giggling but no sound comes out and it reminds Yeosang of the sound white lilies make when they dance on the water, or maybe the feeling of warm sheets after a shower, and he can’t help but get shy and look down into the covering of the table they were sat at when he warms. Seonghwa only did that when he got his way, and Yeosang could tell that it was so easy to get things out of him.

And he has to giggle too, because he knows it was true.

He takes his hand, runs his thumb over his skin and feels the goosebumps prickle over Yeosang and it makes him feel a little more confident in himself to have this effect on someone like him. He looks at him, and his eyes are pretty with the way the lighting worked (more like his whole face, but Seonghwa never thought about it again). They should be used to holding hands, but something in Seonghwa made his chest open and his butterfly heart was soaring over the dark sky and he thinks he likes Yeosang a little more every day that he’s with him.

_Yeo, don’t ever change. Okay?_

Yeosang swallows, unconsciously curls his forefinger over Seonghwa’s thumb and smiles.

_Okay._

And when they take their routine visit to the beach two minutes from their apartment, the sun was setting. It seemed to be setting for quite a while, if Yeosang was being honest, and he thinks that maybe time really did stop when he was with Seonghwa. He was magic in the form of black hair and a pretty starlight smile, able to bend little, unimportant things like time and space for Yeosang, able to do such magnificent things to him, without even doing much. And Yeosang thinks it’s crazy how one person could have all of this power over him, yet be so oblivious to it. He thinks that Seonghwa is something else, hiding his power behind a soft, morning smile and a voice that couldn’t top the shiniest pearls if it tried.

He couldn’t help but fall in love with the way Seonghwa made him feel, the way he swung their hands between each other as they walked to the sand, the way his chest filled and his lungs emptied when he was with him. He was honey glossed in a world that was dull, glowing with Sirius and Rigel and Yeosang thinks that maybe he romanticizes Seonghwa a little too much, but he couldn’t help it.

He thinks of love when he looks at him, nothing more, and nothing less. And he knew Seonghwa didn’t know, and if anything, probably thought he was burnt out and just as dull as everyone else, maybe even a burden for him. But Yeosang couldn’t help it.

Seonghwa was everything to him.

They got to the beach, the sand a dark beige and the moon reflecting off of the mirror sea, and Yeosang takes in the scents of the ocean, how the salt smelled, how the seaweed danced on top of the waves and how the jaded sea cut off within the blacks of the horizon. They walked near the shore, Yeosang only letting go of Seonghwa’s hand to take off his white dress shoes, Seonghwa doing the same, and they sat near the shore, their feet making prints in the golden sugar dunes.

“How is class treating you? I know psychology’s been pretty hard. Learning about how we work and stuff. Using our brains to study our brains.” They’re sitting on the beach now, Seonghwa sitting up while Yeosang leans back in the sand, and the moon lights up his white button down and he looks ethereal, almost like an apparition, and Yeosang can’t help but marvel a bit while he’s speaking into the air.

It’s only when Seonghwa looks down at him, wondering if he heard him fully after getting no response, that Yeosang blinks and tried to get back on track.

He said something about psychology.

“Oh, uh. Yeah! It’s...it’s good.” He says, and he slightly digs his fingers into the mounds of dried sand beneath him, hoping that it would dry out his nerves and just make him act _normal_ (this was his best friend for fuck’s sake), and he blinks twice more because he nearly missed a dark silhouette of a seagull cross over the indigo curtain of the sky. He watches it, and hopes that it would take his worries along with it.

He had a ton, Seonghwa being one of them.

Yeo pulls himself back into where he is right now, lying next to Seonghwa and staring at the denim currents above him as the sun slept under the city. His voice lulls him back, like a pretty two-twone lullaby, and Yeosang looks at him, looks in his eyes and basks in the way a Sunday morning feels, and smiles shyly, looks away from him and back into the atmosphere. 

“You’re lying.” Seonghwa says, letting his head roll on his shoulder to look at Yeosang with a look that said _yeah, right._ “You hate it, right now. It’s midterm season and psychology is hard. You’re stressed and you wish you were eating a cinnamon roll while listening to your indie music and doing nothing for a little, because you need a break. Even right now, your mind’s somewhere else. And you know where your head is? Psychology.”

Yeosang’s lips part, incredulous, and he’s staring at Seonghwa as he smiles again at him.

“Shut _up_.How do you...know me so well? Even Mingi couldn't..."

Yeosang is exhausted, he realizes just how tiring school was and how job applications were and how everything was, how tiring _growing up_ was, and he lies down flat into the pillow sand, mountains of soft marigold, holding onto his clothes and his hair and he knew he would regret it later when he finds sand in his pants but that was a problem for Two Hours From Now Yeosang. Seonghwa laughs lightly at him, because he had been right yet again, and Yeosang was very bad at hiding things. 

Yeosang looks up, sees the navies and indigos and the violets melting in with each other as the transparent clouds crawl across the sky, like smeared candle wax, as the stars scatter around the moon and whisper to each other over the beach. He remembers what he was taught in second grade (or it was middle school, maybe?), that he was looking at a waxing crescent because it was pointing to the left. 

The first step toward fullness, but Yeosang feels like he’s been running, his millionth step and yet, he was still empty.

Seonghwa reminded him of the moon, and all of his different phases, when he wanted to hide or when he wanted to shine. And even then, when he had different phases, he always found comfort in how Seonghwa spoke, held him with his pretty words and how he talked like warm blankets, made him feel wanted, and he can’t help but smile back at the moon and wonder how many stars were accompanying her today, how many stars were whispering back to her and telling her of all of their favorite memories with each other.

“Because, you’re my best friend.” 

Yeosang hears rustling, and sees a glowing white button down for a split second, before feeling warmth on his chest and his heart suddenly ignites bonfire. He’s getting nervous now, but he would never say anything, though. 

_God,_ if he were to say anything.

“Could you believe we’ve been best friends for three years? Over some stupid desk messages.” Seonghwa says, and the corner of his coral lips perk, and Yeosang nearly does the same, because despite it really being dumb when from outside perspective, Yeosang thinks it was important to him, and thinks of just how important those dumb messages were.

“You started it.

“No, you. If you hadn’t written me back, we wouldn’t be here right now.” Seonghwa’s words make Yeosang think of the sky when it rains and the trees when they’re on fire, and he’s staring at the moon and drumming his fingers on his tummy.

“Sh-shush.” Yeosang wants to say a lot more, but it was only a matter of time before his book stacked self-esteem tipped over with how Seonghwa was so close to him and he feels himself topple and scrape his knees and elbows and _fuck,_ he was so close to finishing the conversation.

He couldn’t.

“I’m...kind of surprised. That you still wanted to be my friend after senior year.”

Yeosang suddenly feels sick when he says that, how such a soft voice can carry such heavy weight. He remembers that moment like a rainy day, remembers all the clouds and lightning strikes that made a home in his heart and he swallows, tries to block out the blurriness of it and thinks of literally anything else.

“Y-yeah. Fuck senior year. Fuck you.”

Seonghwa smiles, shaking his head and looking at the sky again, his eyes like beaming crystals as they flick back and forth against the clouds, the moon kindling them with light the color of coffee and Yeosang with the feeling of soaring on the spacey skies above them tonight. He turns his head, so that he’s kind of facing Yeosang, a hint in his eyes that he knew all too well, was so familiar with but never expected.

“You know what would be crazy?”

Yeosang shrugs softly, to ask Seonghwa what he was talking about as he plays with one of the black buttons on his shirt, and he absentmindedly draws circles in the sand beneath him with his other hand and focuses on the weird feeling beneath his fingertips, before Seonghwa speaks again, and his voice is weary.

“If we went into the water right now.”

Yeosang’s eyes widen but Seonghwa can’t see, but he doesn’t need to. His chest stopped moving, meaning that Yeosang also stopped breathing for a second and Seonghwa can’t help but give a short chuckle.

“Come on. Don’t be lame.”

“We don’t have any towels.”

Seonghwa takes it as a new leaf, for Yeosang to be worried about the fact of no towels rather than the things that come out during the night, especially in the water. They couldn’t see their feet in the ocean, even with the moon shining above them like a heat lamp. Someone could try to rob them, which was perfect opportunity for them being alone this late at night. There could be a severe lightning storm and they could both get electrocuted and die. There were many things to worry about, _especially_ for Kang Yeosang to fret over.

But it’s the towels that do it.

Seonghwa gets up, takes it as a green light because Yeosang didn’t exactly say _no_ , and begins to take off his button up.

Yeosang looks at him from where he was laid on the floor, watching the sand dust off of him in pretty sheets as he moves to undo the last one, the moon lighting up his white pants and the grains of glass that shower off of him, almost wrapped in thin curtains.

He thinks that Park Seonghwa is fictional.

And he soon finds himself neck deep in the silver water, rippling around them like watery blankets to protect them from the snippy breezes that the tide brings in as the clock inches closer to midnight. Seonghwa is around somewhere, floating in his back, fingers lightly embedded in the sand and hand linked with Yeosang’s to keep him from floating away. He used his free hand to feel the silk around him, cupping the water and letting it trickle out of his hands, noticing how different everything looked, shadowed in the Earth's sleepiness and the moon's spare time.

He looks at Seonghwa.

The water’s dark around him, but his eyes are closed and his skin is glistening in a way that makes everything seem bright and Yeosang wonders how Seonghwa is feeling. He wonders that a lot: what he’s thinking, and if he sees him any different than high school.

Maybe he does. Yeosang just hopes for the best.

And when he finds himself shivering on the sand, trying to air dry before he put on his clothes and worrying about the sand stuck to his boxers and in his hair, he can’t help but not worry so much anymore. 

He never worries much anymore with Seonghwa.


	2. scribble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE AS OF 8.13: i was a senior in hs when i wrote this. as a freshman in college i now know that i had no idea how uni worked so i apologize pls ignore the minor and majoring parts and the fact that they have class periods??¿?

Yeosang was only seventeen years old when he met him. 

They didn’t really talk face to face, yet, and in fact, he didn’t really meet him until the day he turned eighteen, but he remembered thinking to himself that it was a really good birthday gift to finally put a face to the dark #2 pencil that scribbled all over his desk in Psychology.

He remembers that it was Quiz Day, a dreaded and overdramatic staple within class curriculum, and he remembers that he’d thought that they moved desks, because he doesn’t remember writing on his own. Maybe he was too heavy for his original desk and the kid next period broke it because he had weakened the screws or something outrageous. He didn’t remember writing on it, nor was it something that he had a desire to do. That was bad, something that _bad_ kids do.

Yeosang wasn’t a bad kid.

And he looks at the teacher to kind of silently get her attention because he was still unsure, but she was kind of out of her mind and very sporadic when it came to things like this, so he ended up not saying anything, just covered it as best as he could with his papers and hoped that she doesn’t notice and ask. She was more of the give-detentions-ask-questions-never type, and Yeosang fucking despised sitting in a room for an hour in complete silence when he could be doing literally anything else. 

Perfect opportunity for his empty stomach to start its best rendition of Zauberflöte or some shitty mezzo opera and he would absolutely die when the kids around him heard.

The classroom is unexpectedly bright today, clear light that reminded Yeosang of clean community pools during the summer decorating the walls, despite the dark clouds hanging overhead and visiting over the school. This classroom was always good for writing and reading because of the way it’s positioned against the outside, and Yeosang looked forward to the free time he was able to get after the tests so that he could make a dent in his novels or catch up on homework for the next period. Yeosang thinks that’s why they do so much of it in this stupid psych class. He sits, and as soon as that annoying bell tolls, his teacher’s droning about _the honor code_ and _if I see you cheating I’ll call your parents and kick you out through the window_ , you know, the usual, but Yeosang hears this same speech before every test, so he lightly brushes his note papers with his fingertips and moves them enough to see the message scribbled on the polished wood while her voice blends in, like the music they play in department stores or on busy work elevators.

_hello!_

_days: 5 :(_

Yeosang studies the exclamation point and how bold it was over the rest of the writing. He remembers watching a psychology video on handwriting for an assignment a couple of units ago. That probably meant the person probably liked pineapple fruit smoothies and cried during puppy commercials.

Something like that.

He only comes to when there’s another paper on his desk, filled with questions and multiple choice answers passed down from the bored looking kid next to him, and he holds back the urge to sigh outward. His psychology teacher is sat down, and he kind of feels bad because he did completely brush her off, but he feels like these messages were way more important than a test that just required memory recall and common sense. Yeosang can’t help but think about those messages. He wondered what the number of days meant to the sender.

So he decides to ask.

**_what does the number of days mean?_ **

He glances at the teacher once, then twice, hoping she didn’t see him, and then just acted like he didn’t, planning to ask him to see her after class or something. But she doesn’t, and Yeosang feels like he could steal a car or rob a bank or something that was at the same level as writing on his teacher’s desk. 

This was nice, what recklessness felt like.

And when the bell rings, he nearly trips over a backpack in the middle of the aisle as he rushes to leave the class before someone could notice that there’s more messages on the desk in his handwriting. 

~♤~

_oh my god thank fuck i thought nobody would respond to me_

The first thing Yeosang does is slip into his desk without reading the assignment listed on the board and scans over the wood, seeing that his hopes were up for a very good reason. There’s more loopy handwriting and more exclamation points under their messages from yesterday and Yeosang feels the corner of his mouth curl upwards. He thinks the change in message-tone from what he expected yesterday was weird, but he had a friend who was just like him. 

Maybe he would like Desk Message Guy just as much.

_it was how many days have gone by without getting a response but now i could stop counting!!_

_im seonghwa hello new friend!_

Seonghwa.

Yeosang says it in his head, getting a feel for it. His name sounded like the noise the waves make when they crash against the shore at sunset, like how the clouds show out when it’s about to rain. A weird, daunting forecast was what came out of it when Yeosang says it, but it made him want to stand in the rain he brought, to see what he was about. 

_Seonghwa._

Yeosang hides the message with his notebook this time, adding his white polymer eraser to cover the bit of messages that weren’t hidden from yesterday. His professor was still busy at her computer, typing away and catching up on attendance this time, and he quickly digs in the front of his black school backpack and pulls out an old mechanical pencil deep in the recesses of extra ID cards and wrinkled late passes he was too reminiscent of to throw away. 

It’s the one he never uses because the eraser’s been worn away from countless statistics errors.

He clicks the top of it twice, scribbling out and darkening out his letters on the shiny desk while he heard the keyboard clicks of his teacher on her computer.

**_hi seonghwa_ **

**_im yeosang! but my friends call me ye0_ **

He erases the “o” in circles, rubbing and smudging it and trying to get it off, until it resembles greyed mascara under watery eyes because it looked like a zero and he didn’t want Seonghwa to get confused.

_**yeo.** _

It’s fixed.

**_u could call me yeo_ **

He doesn’t know why, but he’s nervous. He didn’t think Desk Message Guy would respond and keep this going. Maybe he would read that his name was Yeosang and completely ignore him. _God,_ he hated his name. He almost wants to erase the entirety of the messages, ask the girl next to him if she had a bigger eraser and just clear everything off of the desk, like he’s got the grime of something he shouldn’t be doing on his hands every time he touched it. He’s kind of anxious that Seonghwa will respond again, and want to _actually_ be his friend and actually _want_ to talk to him in person. 

No. Nevermind.

Yeosang stares at the clock, watching as the minute hand is stuck on the 10, and begins to count a minute as the keyboard clicks melt into his head. He gets to 19 before the hands change, and begins to count again from 60 to pass the time. He gets so bored in this class, and naps weren’t allowed in here, neither was reading or playing Nintendo games (he's tried, never going to do it again), so he was kind of screwed until his professor decided to start teaching.

And it seems like the class went by before he could finish counting off the clock, because she didn’t lecture and instead had them watch the news channel because she was busier today than she was yesterday. He thinks of it as a blessing, but at the same time, he could have been catching up on homework if they were just going to watch current events for the rest of the class.

But he can’t say anything, or he’ll get expelled or something. Plus, it would be rude and eager, and Yeosang isn’t rude.

He _was_ eager for a message from Seonghwa tomorrow, but that was the extent of it during this class.

~♤~

_well yeo u have very cute handwriting_

_are u an art student??_

Yeosang begins to wonder how transparent he really was. If it was easy to guess that he was an art student based on how his a’s were shaped and how his exclamation points looked, then what else can someone see? He begins to think that Seonghwa might have known him a little, maybe passed by him in the hallway sometimes or heard of him through a mutual friend.

His only friend was Mingi, so he wouldn’t have to work so hard to get his answer.

**_how did u know!!! i study art yes_ **

**_what do u study?_ **

He tugs at the right sleeve of his black hoodie, pulling it over his fingers that felt way too cold for the rest of him, fingernails slightly tinted with the dust of desert bluebells from the temperature in here. He finds today to be a little better, not because he was having a shit day to begin with, but every time he stepped into this class, he couldn’t wait to leave.

It was redundant, he hated doing the same things every day almost as much as he hated talking.

Now, he couldn’t wait to come here and speak to him.

He thinks of what he said to Seonghwa yesterday at the start of class, and during his professor’s lecture he pictures what he looks like, melding the talk of sensory overload to Seonghwa's image. He thinks maybe he’s short, with dark facial hair and beautiful emerald eyes. Or maybe he’s really tall and pale and blonde and wears a lot of black, smudged liner with piercings everywhere. Maybe he wore big, round glasses and carried textbooks with him instead of leaving them at home, with oversized jackets and battered shoes he got from his brother three years ago.

He wonders if he liked to talk as much as he seemed.

And this made Yeosang more excited to talk to him, something in his heart that felt like confetti cannons going off at a party with all of these scenarios he’s making in his head, and he’s tempted to write more to him before he leaves class.

He doesn’t know what to say.

Hm.

**_hey, i hope this isnt weird but what do u look like?_ **

He stares at the message, only glancing away from it once to look at his teacher so it’s convincing that he’s paying attention to her, and once the hand on the clock ticks again, he’s overthinking, typically. He was bold to assume his low self-esteem wouldn’t ruin everything, and he’s worrying about all the new made up scenarios he’s come up with between now and 20 minutes ago and he’s embarrassing himself.

The bell for class rings, and he completely missed everything in the lecture and what was _really_ going on in class, and he ends up erasing the last message while the professor was distracted (accidentally smudging off a little bit of the last letter of the second message and failing to erase the last couple of words), hurrying down the row until he gets out of the door, almost tripping over the backpack at the first desk.

If he can’t even deal with desk messages, how is he ever going to speak to Seonghwa in person?

On his way to the cafeteria to meet Mingi, he decides that maybe it was a better idea to not message him tomorrow.

Maybe.

~♤~

Turns out Yeosang can’t keep his own promises and he ended up messaging Seonghwa for the next week and a half after that. 

The desk was crowded in the lower right corner, dark messages etched in graphite, completely ruining the prettiness of the polished surface but Yeosang thinks that they’re nice there, like tattoos, except they were telling his own story and it wasn’t his body nor were they permanent.

Same gist, though. 

He thinks there should be graphite all over the desk, but if he got caught his soul would dissipate and he couldn’t handle it, so he doesn’t try, and instead, kept his own messages practically glued to Seonghwa’s in the corner. It’s a Friday today, and Yeosang has work until 9pm after his last class and he was absolutely dreading having to drag himself to the studio. It wasn’t dancing itself; he loved to ride the music wave and study its principles.

It was a good way for him to speak without talking at all. 

It was more of the fact that he wasn't in practice outside of him being obligated to do so. He remembers how much he didn’t mind minoring in dance, but also how he told Seonghwa that he would have rather done something for art, since he paints nearly every day and has a mini setup in the corner of his tiny living room. He spent nearly his whole life creating things on paper and smudging acrylics into canvas, giving paintings as gifts and hanging up his own on his wall. He likes art a lot, and Seonghwa had told him more than once to just switch minors. 

He thinks that maybe he should listen to him.

His professor tells the class that it’s going to be a free period study hall for their test next Monday, and that she better not catch them on their phones or it’s a referral and a kick out from the class (through the window). Yeosang makes sure his phone is locked and tosses it in his backpack, seeing it slide between his composition book for American English Literature and the workbook given out for Statistics and Probability, in which he’d forget was there by the end of the period and spend five minutes searching his whole backpack for it. He takes out his notebook and flips to the last page, glancing at his slanted, bold handwriting and the highlighter clouds he draws over important statements, before he finds a blank slate behind his Psychology notes from yesterday.

He can’t help but flick his attention to and skim over the messages in the corner of his desk from the past week and a half. They didn’t seem like a lot, but the more he looks at how tiny they had to write and how many messages he erased just to make room for these new ones, he thinks this is something right out of a movie and feels even more dumb than he did when they first started.

_majoring in interior design, minoring in photography and visual art modification_

**_wow that sounds fun_ **

**_my minor is dance_ **

**_but im not sure i want to stay_ **

_u can still switch it’s not too late!_

_what do you like_

_to do for fun?_

**_sleep. read. paint._ **

**_i like cats._ **

**_idk maybe that will help_ **

_sleep read paint pet cats_

_sounds bORING_

**_hey >:|_ **

_do u like history_

_**love history a lot** _

_minor in art history then_

_DUH_

**_shush_ **

**_maybe i will_ **

_u wont no balls_

**_what is that a challenge_ **

**_okay now i HAVE to switch minors_ **

**_i dont have enough money for this_ **

_good now youll be happier_

_everyone say thank u hwa_

**_thank u hwa_ **

_ya know, i’ve never seen u around_

_what do u look like?_

_i **dont wanna tell u because youll see me and be disappointed** _

**_im ugly noah fence_ **

_oh pls youll be just as cute as u sound_

_just bc u said ur ugly i know youll be hot as fuck or something_

_thats with everyone_

_i bet brad pitt was like “im ugly!” when he was a teen_

**_jeez hwa_ **

**_what do U look like?_ **

**_i have never seen u around either_ **

_i have this class for third period if that helps_

**_dont know anyone in third period save for mingi_ **

Yeosang’s a little surprised when he gets to the last message Seonghwa wrote to him from today, sees that he completely disregarded his last message and changed the subject.

_im switching out of this class_

_my schedule got messed up and they just noticed :c_

_this will be my last message before i go but is it okay if we meet for lunch today?_

i usually _eat w my friends in the stairwell in the sciences wing if u want to see me, i wanna know what u look like!_

_and if u wanna eat w us pls do!! i told them a lot ab u pls dont leave me hangin_

_see u later hopefully c:_

Yeosang suddenly gets nervous. He looks up to see if anyone noticed his cheeks blooming in dusty rose and he feels hot now, his heart suddenly beating in confrontation, even though nobody was here to confront him. He wants to tell Seonghwa to forget it, that it was nice talking to him but he thinks that this will be it for him. His confidence is slowly seeping out of his bones and out of his blood as he clutches his pencil in his sweaty hand, and writes a sloppy message back to him.

**_thatd be good!! i’ll see you_ **

He was scared, now. What if Seonghwa’s friends didn’t like him, or thought he was weird? What if Seonghwa was one of the guys that asked him if he was going to a funeral? What if he thought he was ugly in person? What if Yeosang sneezes and gets it all over Seonghwa’s sweater? 

_Jeez. Pull it together, man._

Yeosang gets his breathing on track, remembers that his lungs needed air for him to function, and looks at the clock to see that there was less than five minutes before class ended and people were wrapping up their work and closing textbooks, talking to each other about their other classmates and what their friends did with illegal substances last weekend with their backpacks on their shoulders, ready to leave. 

He decides that he will be fine. Some psychology trick that if you believe in something hard enough, it’ll happen. He just needed to believe he was as talkative in the messages he sent to Seonghwa, is all. He'd be fine.

It was only when the bell rang that Yeosang remembered what Seonghwa had written and erased his last message, and erased all of Seonghwa’s before that and all of his before that, too.

He’s all up in it now, there was no going back and no quitting. 

_Fuck._ He'd be fine.


	3. cards.

Yeosang wasn’t really known for making good decisions.

Seonghwa, however, was one of his best. 


	4. sleepy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello!
> 
> this already has a bunch of kudos and hits and?? i might scream thank u for checking this out! i hope you're liking it so far c:
> 
> this might have some spelling mistakes, i read thru it but sometimes it doesn't always pick up so i will go thru and pick them out later! 
> 
> thank u pls enjoy

Yeosang originally planned to go home and sleep through the cold today, as it was in the middle of November and it got irritatingly chilly out here with the biting winds and most of the campus required walking outside to get from Point A to Point B.

He wasn’t used to it being so cold, being from a warmer area of the state where winter lasted approximately 4 days with a low of 60 degrees maximum, so understandably, he was exhausted after an 8 hour day and needed chicken soup and all of the sweaters in his closet from the thrift store. And he wasn’t used to wearing huge sweaters and stuff, but he was starting to think that maybe a thin long sleeve and ripped black jeans weren’t a good alternative to hot weather, either.

Somehow, Mingi convinced him to go to study hall with him after their last class and finish up his essay for American Literature, maybe some Statistics homework if he stayed long enough. He had the promise of iced coffee and a quiet area away from the other kids who were in the room waiting for him, so if he wanted to talk, he wouldn’t disturb anyone. There was also a promise of spending time with one of his favorite people in the world, but Mingi never brought it up to him.

He walks into the classroom, sees a bunch of people sitting that he had never noticed before and probably will forget about when he leaves, but he swallows and ignored the couple of people glancing up to notice who walked into the room and if he was worth staring at. 

Yeosang doesn’t know if he should feel better or worse when they look back down at their books and phone screens almost as quickly as they looked up.

He walks almost too quickly to the spot where they were supposed to meet, and relief washes over him in waves when he sees Mingi at the farthest black tables in the corner, where the lights dimmed, seeing him in a solid dark cherry sweater that complimented his tanned skin, falling off of his shoulders a bit, his black hair parted and messy, as if he’d just gotten out of bed but styled some water in it, his big specs perched on his nose and Yeosang thinks this look fits him very well. 

He would probably never tell him, instead, hopes that he just knows. 

Mingi sees him, eyes crystalline despite the lack of lighting in this corner, and smiles at him with such genuine happiness that Yeosang looks down and giggles into his hand. 

Mingi was nearly everything to Yeosang. He was the early morning dew drops that danced on grass blades and kissed green leaves when the world wakes up. Mingi was Yeosang’s brightest sunrise on the days when his nights were heavy, like a supernova in the midst of a desolate and starless night sky. He’d been there for him, through everything, since he was fourteen, and had no one to talk to on the first day of school. He was there with him through his senior year, when everything hurt the most. He was there for him now, when he could finally give back to him and be Mingi’s sunrise when the moon refused to shine for him. 

They were each other’s worlds and moons and stars and galaxies and everything in between and far away. 

And Yeosang thinks that nothing was ever worthless if Mingi smiled at it. Like priceless diamond, Mingi’s smile was made up of everything that the prettiest paintings in the world couldn’t capture. He was thankful for him, even if he never showed it.

“Sang! I missed you.” He waves, and Yeosang kind of forgets that he needed to sit and instead focuses on talking to Mingi. It felt like every conversation had them frozen, like time never passed with him, either.

Timeless Mingi.

“How’s Econ? How’s Psych? How’s Lit? How’s life?” Mingi almost shouts the last question, and Yeosang smiles because he’s flattered that he cares so much and gets distracted a bunch. He grabs his hand and tugs on it for him to sit with him. Yeo glances behind him at the few people looking up, irritated that Mingi wasn’t quiet, and reaches over the black table to pull the partition a little farther.

He took a huge risk by doing that, thinking of all the bad things that could have happened, like the partition falling or him slipping and hitting himself on the desk and he would have been so humliated. But he remembers Mingi was talking to him so he answers his questions and focuses on him.

“Everything’s okay. Are you?” Yeosang asks, his voice lower than normal, but Mingi leaned over to hear him a bit better.

“Yeah, the year’s finally thinning out. I brought you your coffee. Pumpkin cream cold brew. Iced coffee on a cold day. That’s weird.”

“Thank you!” Yeosang lights up, sees his cold drink and immediately takes it from the cupholder when Mingi holds it down for him, sipping it and flicking a tongue over his lips to get the rest of the cream left over. It tasted like fall.

Mingi stares at him, at his reddened nose from the cold outside and his chilly hair that probably felt like snow sheets and then at the iced coffee he was drinking.

Old habits die hard, he guessed.

Yeosang was very good at switching his attention (almost too good, sometimes), so it didn’t take long for him to finish his American Literature essay and edit it all in the time he and Mingi were there. Mingi talked a lot, but Yeosang found it comforting how there was someone like Mingi who was a safe spot for when he got bored of writing or wanted to know more about him. Mingi was talking to someone new, a boy named Yunho who sounded like was made of the world’s most precious jewels and had a smile like caramel, like he was honey in Mingi’s favorite tea. He learned that Mingi’s friend Wooyoung had broken his foot and asked him to walk him to his classes for the week and he almost got stuck in the elevator trying to pick up his books. He learned that a girl named Yeeun had gotten asked out by one of the boys in the jazz band, getting a group together to play a song for her in front of everybody

Yeosang would have died if it were him, so it’s a good thing he was the one who asked. Not a good thing to get rejected, but whatever.

It was nice, hearing and knowing that there were a lot of people here and that they all had fears and moments and shitty things happening to them like having a broken foot, but they all kept pushing and Yeosang finds it sweet. He thinks that maybe he should push a little more, then wonders if Mingi tells stories about him or Seonghwa to his other friends, too.

Hm.

His phone vibrates, and he had forgotten he put it in his back pocket until now. He looks up at the kids in the tables, hoping that no one was looking at him because there was a huge chance that he could drop his phone and break it and people would laugh at him. No one was really paying attention, so he has no problem pulling it out, and sees he’s gotten a message from Seonghwa.

**hwa:** _ yeo! _

**hwa:** _ i just finished class, are u home? _

**_hwa!_ **

**_i am not home_ **

**_study hall with minnie_ **

**_mingi***_ **

**hwa:** _ are u almost done?  _

**_yea_ **

**_i had stat to finish but_ **

**_tired :|_ **

**hwa:** _ ill swing by then and we could walk home together? _

**hwa:** _ if thats okay with u guys  _

**_yes pls_ **

Yeosang turns to Mingi, who’s chicken-scratch scribbling in his notebook as he watches a YouTube video on his phone on the effects of...amphetamine of the synaptic plasticity of a rat’s medial prefrontal cortex? It had to have been something that Yeosang assumed was for a project for biology or psychology even, and he taps him on his shoulder once, hoping he didn’t annoy him for interrupting his work.

“M-Mingi? Is it okay if Seonghwa comes to get me?”

Mingi glances at him, eyebrows raised and eyes wide, something that he does when he’s really focused on something, and then nods enthusiastically once it registers, eyes lighting up at the mention of Seonghwa and he smiles. 

Yeosang feels warm.

“Yeah, you don’t have to ask! Are you ready to go, then? I’ll wait for him to come, me and Joong are right across from here.”

“Yes. If it’s not too much.”

Mingi nods, writes down the last of his bullet point and begins to put away his stuff, Yeosang sliding off the stool he was sitting on to throw out their coffee trash and scrap paper and finish putting his things away. 

The partition opens when he’s sliding his laptop in between his notebook and journal, and there’s Seonghwa with his black hair under an even blacker beanie and he’s got on an oversized sweater with a long sleeve striped shirt underneath it, the collar coming out of the top. There’s silver chains that link over his neck and reach the middle of his chest, decorating him like the jewels in a Queen Victoria chandelier, and he’s got on dark jeans and black boots on his feet and there are more silver chains on his belt loops and he’s got a dangly earring in and Yeosang wants to know what the hell was the point of looking this good today. 

Seonghwa was threatening in all black, and Yeosang thinks it’s crazy how he wears the color everyday himself, but the two were on completely different spectrums and he knows he wouldn’t be able to keep up if he tried.

“Hi, Yeosang. It’s cold. I stopped at my locker to bring you an extra sweater because you seem to think you’re made of iron and can’t get cold.” Seonghwa looks at Yeosang’s scrap paper and sees that it’s filled with math equations and probability formulas and standard deviation graphs and Seonghwa can’t wrap his head around why anyone would willingly take statistics  _ again  _ after passing AP in senior year.

But he lets Yeosang do his thing. He was a smart kid, Seonghwa really admired him.

“Funny, considering I have iron deficiency.” 

Yeosang  _ has _ to giggle at Seonghwa’s incredulous look, because he wasn’t one to joke about things like that and apparently didn’t think Yeosang would do it either. “Thank you, Hwa. For coming.” Yeosang finds the gesture so sweet that he thinks he might smile too wide in front of Mingi and have an annoying thought about how many cuts of diamond Seonghwa was made out of.

“Hi, Hwa. I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Thanks for studying with me, Sang!” 

Yeosang gives Mingi a smile as he waves and heads out of the study hall through the exit door closest to them since he and Hongjoong’s dorm was right across the street past the gates, Seonghwa and Yeosang going through the door they came in. A chilly breeze instantly rakes through his clothes, sending an unpleasant spark down his spine that he only really gets when he’s alone with him.

Seonghwa found it necessary to hold his hand as they walked down the sidewalk.

He didn’t find it necessary, and in fact, his heart was racing, but he never said anything because he didn’t want Seonghwa to let go. Some weird reverse psychological theory he read about it class.

“How was your day, Bun?”

The sky was covered in the dull white-grey of cotton, whisps of ashy smoke above them, as snow blanketed the grass around the sidewalks and hugged the statues and benches with freezing hands and icy fingers. Seonghwa’s hands were freezing, too, but the one laced with Yeosang’s was warm and Seonghwa felt at home. He was carrying his backpack and Yeosang’s computer bag, grabbing it before Yeosang could take it himself and he felt like he was dumping all of his shit on Seonghwa because the bag was heavy, but he knew trying to get it back would only result in Seonghwa telling him not to worry and quickly change the subject so he wouldn’t have to keep arguing with him. He was too slick with things like that.

He was too good.

“It was okay.” Yeosang tells him, looks at the pavement underneath his feet just in case there were rocks or cracks and  _ not  _ because he could feel his face get hotter and couldn’t look Seonghwa in the eye. He feels intimidated. “How was...how was yours?”

“Decent. Kinda boring. But at least I got to walk you home.” Seonghwa squeezes Yeosang’s hand in his own, and his butterfly heart flutters in his chest, his eyes flicking between his two shoes, and he wishes he didn’t smile so easily because he knows that Seonghwa sees him and he  _ knows  _ what he’s probably thinking.

“We live together. You see me everyday,” Yeosang smiles, and Seonghwa returns the same rose petal lipped smile that brings the sun to shame no matter how many times it rises differently and sets the same, and Yeosang feels his feather heart begin to give in again and has to look at the floor.

_ God,  _ this was so much work.

“I know.” And Yeosang knew that Seonghwa was smiling even wider but he decides not to look up yet.

He had something else on the tip of his tongue, maybe mention Mingi and Yunho or Hongjoong, but he sees the first bits of white rain start to fall once more and he’s never seen snow sprinkle like this before so, of course, he has to run away from Seonghwa and cup the snow in his hands as it sways down.

It feels just like little pieces of ice, like when you push the button for crushed ice from the fridge and some of it gets on your hand. Very anticlimactic to what the movies make it seem like. 

He enjoys it anyway, not really worrying about Seonghwa as much and watching as the snow fell a bit harder, fluffing into his hands. He looks up, sees the walkway towards their dorm foggy with white ice and looks at it collecting on the trees like pulled cotton. Yeosang gasps slightly, a snowflake falling onto his nose, and he wipes it away and soon half of his face was cold and wet. 

He giggles. 

“Yeo! Yeosang! The snow’s getting harder, we need to leave.” Seonghwa has a tiny grin on his face as he looks at Yeosang totally invested in this snow, hugging himself and shaking the snow out of his hair.

He looks so engrossed in something so familiar and basic to him, that he kind of doesn’t want to leave. He almost wants to go back to their apartment and grab more coats just so Yeosang can play in the snow. But he quickly puts the idea away, knowing the pneumonia and hypothermia that could come out of it and he couldn’t deal with being sick now.

“Look, Hwa!” Yeosang holds out his freezing hands to Seonghwa to show him the snow, as if it was a newly discovered secret Yeosang had found out about, but Seonghwa was from a colder part of town, and it snowed nearly every winter so he was used to this, but the smile on Yeosang’s face at something so simple was enough for him to he just as amused and he takes Yeosang’s hands, feels how cold they are and separates them so that the snow falls out of his hands save for the few melted drops sticking to his hands.

“My snow.” Yeosang pouts and looks at the pile on the pavement below him, watching it slowly melt, ignoring the cold kiss of the weather on the back of his neck or the top of his forehead.

“Bunny, you’re gonna get hypothermia out here. Come on.” Seonghwa slips his hand into Yeosang’s, and the feeling of the leftover snow in between their hands feels weird until it’s heated up and eventually just leaves a few drops on their knuckles, and Yeosang suddenly feels really hot despite the weather.

Seonghwa walks a little faster, tugging Yeosang along, who doesn’t say much and instead focuses on his steps and his heart and where he’s walking, and they finally make it to their dorm just as the snow picked up. Seonghwa had a little trouble getting the key into the doorknob, and he dropped it by accident because his hands were so cold and he was shivering, but he got it soon enough and Yeosang was only trembling a tiny bit.

He immediately goes over to the thermostat when he closes the door behind Yeosang, who finds himself in the kitchen searching for two cans of the really salty and cheap chicken noodle soup that you keep in the cupboard, stirring it in the tiny pot he finds in the dish rack. Seonghwa takes off his wet sweater and his shirt without saying anything, meaning Yeosang did not expect to see his half naked roommate when he turned around, tousled black hair a mess and cheeks blushed the color of crimson oak leaves, and Yeosang opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out, so he turns back around, his soups suddenly becoming very interesting.

“I’ll get you a new sweater? That one’s all wet.”

Seonghwa’s voice is piercing, thoughts muddy.

“Y-yeah. Yes, please. And pajama pants!” Yeosang calls, Seonghwa going into his own room to retrieve his clothes, since the few feet extra to go into Yeosang’s room was way too much work for what he was capable of right now, as he stirs the lukewarm soup on the pot.

There really was no reason to keep stirring it, but Yeosang had literally nothing else to do. It was then when he realizes he didn’t even turn the stove on in his haste to distract himself, pushing the correct buttons to get the stove on and thinking that maybe he was stupid when he set foot in this apartment.

“Perfect time for Christmas movies!” Seonghwa nearly shouts, Yeosang turning around to see Seonghwa with his sweater and pants in his hand, now in black sweats and a solid black sweater, setting it on the island counter right behind him, and he props himself up, too. He knows that Yeosang always gets on him about putting his butt on the same surface as where they eat, but he doesn’t say anything this time and Seonghwa thinks it’s because he’s been distracted with work and school lately. He wonders what he could do to see Yeosang again, like how he was before things started to get hard. He would always be so vibrant, like the rings on Saturn or the angle at which sunlight hits the rain puddles on the side of the road in the mornings. Lately, he’s been dull, burnt out. And he was still the same, yet, seemed to be stuck in plastic wrap, suffocating underneath his cherry skin and moonlit eyes. 

He thinks that taking him out more would help. He clears all of his plans to stay home on Saturday night.

Yeosang turns again to look at Seonghwa and ask him if he wanted any of this soup (which he should have, because Yeosang sure as hell wasn’t going to eat two cans of soup by himself), and he’s quiet once again when he’s staring right back at him. His nose is still pink and his cheeks are still the colors of autumn, and Yeosang could see the faint freckles scattered on his nose that only come out during the winter, like broken seashells that litter the sand before dawn, unfamiliar, yet completely perfect and set where they belong. His eyes are bright, despite the murky stare he’s holding from thinking too much, and his hair is parted in a way that makes Yeosang lose his breath the more he tries to catch it. Seonghwa makes him feel all too much, yet all too little, and he thinks that maybe he should tell him one day.

And not the day that he’s asshole drunk and could barely stand up straight and looks Seonghwa right in the middle of his forehead to say  _ hey, I’m in love with you.  _

It’s the day that Yeosang would find himself on the beach with him for another night, a twilight routine that seems completely normal, yet has a blanket of undeniable difference over it, just for once, like a record with a hidden scratch on it for its next play. And he tells him, while he stares at the moon so he wouldn’t see Seonghwa’s expression but is still facing up to him, and he’d be like  _ Seonghwa, I think I love you. Like, love love.  _ No, that was weird. Maybe something like  _ Seonghwa, please don’t think this is weird. I’m in love with you. Sorry. Don’t think this is weird. _

But he realizes that was wishful thinking and he was a fucking wimp when it came to confrontation, plus the most comforting (yet dispiriting) fact of the matter was that realistically would never happen, so he depends on the asshole drunk day to tell him. And Yeosang never goes to parties with anyone,  _ ever,  _ and he only got drunk once, so he didn’t worry too much.

“...soup.”

Yeosang blinks, sees he crossed his arms together at one point during his daydream (but not sure whether it was to keep cold or too keep his insecurities at bay), and found a focus point in the orangey-brown sunset tiles that made up their kitchen floor. His eyes flick to Seonghwa, who was staring at him. He blinks again, and realizes he had been talking to him.

“Huh?”

“Your soup, Sang. It’s boiling over.”

“Fuck!”

Yeosang turns and pushes the pot off of the flame, the soup leaving residue on the sides of it where it boiled over the rim and the burned broth sizzling black on the stove smells exactly like disappointment. Some of the hot soup splashed on his hand when he moved the pot, and he ignores the pain for a second to turn the stove’s flame off, sighing and going to the sink to wash it off, his skin a deep pink and he knew it would blister later.

“Got lost again? Sometimes I wonder what you think about. I want to have thoughts that interesting.” Seonghwa says, already having grabbed the burn relief and some gauze from the medicine cabinet, coming up behind him as he pats it dry with a paper towel from the roll near the sink.

And Yeosang could practically see him smile, could practically see the creases that indent his cheeks when he’s giggling and his heart sets off again, like a fuse to a bunch of firecrackers. He looks down and watches Seonghwa squeeze the ointment directly onto his skin, and use the same damp paper towel to gently spread it over the burn, sensitive and stinging, and Yeo makes a face at how it already looks despite happening less than two minutes ago.

_ Jeez.  _ He couldn’t even make soup without getting distracted.

“You gotta be more careful, Bun. You know how much this would cost?” Seonghwa’s wrapping Yeosang’s hand in the gauze, and he kind of thinks it’s too much because it wasn’t that bad of a burn, he’d let the air do its thing, but he never says anything and hopes that he was right in not having any blisters tomorrow.

“No.”

“Me neither. But I’d imagine it’d be a lot for one person if they caught on fire.”

“Oh. I thought you were talking about the apartment.”

“Apartment’s not important”

It didn’t take long for Seonghwa to pour more of the soup into a mug for the two of them after it had time to cool, while Yeosang changed into the new clothes Seonghwa had brought for him. He took the smaller portion, and he brings the mugs to the living room. Yeosang was gone, but Seonghwa glances at the pretty paintings scattered on the wall, and feels like he was still here, talking to him about the times they went to all of these places together. He almost wants to ask if Yeosang would paint a picture of this, too, but he noticed that Yeosang was almost finished with another on the easel in the living room, so he immediately forgets about it once Yeosang comes out of his room. 

Pink, mostly orange and swallowed by yellow and white detailing. This was another sunset, one of the many, many things that Yeosang painted beautifully, but there was something different. As he passed the easel with two mugs in hand, he sees how Yeosang uses his fingers more than the brushes to blend everything, uses his heart and all of his soul to make things better.

He made everything beautiful.

Seonghwa begins to think of the space in his room to put it, handing Yeosang a mug and setting himself down right beside him, careful not to spill it on his clothes.

“Thank you, Hwa!”

“O’course, Bun.”

Yeosang hears it and it stays in his head, like the neon red of an exit sign, and he sometimes wonders where Seonghwa got that from and when he started calling him that. Sometime during senior year when they met, but he doesn’t know exactly  _ when _ . But he likes being called something other than Yeosang. His name was boring and known by everyone, even people he didn’t know, so he really liked when his friends called him Yeo or Sang or  _ Bunny.  _

Especially Bunny.

Yeosang just offers him a smile, scooting over carefully so the soup doesn’t spill and scald his skin again through the blanket. Seonghwa has the cursor over a movie, a curled violet mountain and small pumpkins surrounding the graveyard it sits in, a pretty, yellow moon swallowing the middle of the scene.

“Nightmare?” He turns to look at Yeosang’s face, his black hair falling in his face, almost shrouding, and Yeosang turns to the television before he has time to see him run tanned fingers through it.

“Y-yeah. Nightmare’s good.”

Seonghwa knew that it was Yeosang’s favorite animated movie, but you couldn’t ever tell from a response like that.

He has the movie playing, and Yeosang brings the blanket over his legs as the heater starts to kick in. The sunlight from the snowy outside offers them a slight illumination from their windows, not bothering to put blinds on them since they were on the third floor and if someone wanted to watch them they’d have to find really inconvenient ways to do it, so it never bothered them. Yeosang feels cozy, like he’s really at home and not in an apartment miles away from his parents and hometown, and being next to Seonghwa while one of his favorite movies plays in front of him makes him want to shout out loud, maybe talk about it to someone.

He’d never be caught  _ dead  _ screaming, but it was nice to think about being so happy.

He’s halfway through his soup when the sleep begins to kick in, and warm soup and cold bodies and fuzzy blankets were not a good mix for a sleep deprived Yeosang, and he’s suddenly very drowsy once Jack starts singing about the things in the woods. He wants to finish his soup, maybe talk to Seonghwa a little more, since he had been doing a good job keeping him awake by throwing balloon conversation topics into the air when nothing was really going on in the movie and Yeosang popped as much as he could, but he was at a loss once Seonghwa stopped talking himself.

“Hwa, I’m tired. Sleepy day today.”

“Ugh, me too. I didn’t want to leave you so I didn’t say anything.” Seonghwa leans over, places his empty soup mug on the coffee table a little farther from where they were just in case he moved and it broke off of the floor, the couch cushions dipping a little as he faced Yeosang. He found it endearing how ready Seonghwa was to listen to whatever stupid, unimportant thing he had to tell him, or how invested he was when he was the one needing to talk to him.

“Do you want to stay here or go to your room? I’m kinda tired, too, so I could pause the movie if you don’t want to miss it.”

That gets Yeosang thinking. He could take the opportunity to sleep on Seonghwa like he’d usually do, or go into his room and sleep until tomorrow. He still had some Statistics homework to do, though, and it was risky to try and do it in class tomorrow. And Seonghwa stares at him while he does, at how his eyes glinted in the dim sunlight of the winter’s afternoon and how he looked nearly perfect for this type of weather, and he feels like he wants to kiss him. 

No, tell him how pretty he was. 

No, both.

No. He didn’t know.

“Can we stay out here? I have homework to do later.” Yeosang has to yawn and he found it rude to do it in the open, so he hides his mouth in his hands, except the sweater Seonghwa had brought was a little too big and covered the majority of his hands.

Seonghwa had to look away, uses it as an excuse so he could adjust, to where he was lying on the couch with his head against the armrest, the blanket pulled off of Yeosang. He lies down on him, his head on his stomach, and Seonghwa throws the blanket over him again. Yeosang tries to get comfortable once, but it doesn’t work so he shifts one more time until his face was nearly buried in Seonghwa’s sweater and he was breathing in the faint aroma of coffee.

This was Seonghwa’s lazy sweater and he wore it a lot in the mornings, it made sense.

Yeosang can’t stop his heart from beating, the heavy cadence the only thing he could hear clearly, and he kind of gets disappointed when the overwhelming desire to sleep was diminishing, and he thinks that maybe if he went into his room he would be able to nap. But maybe, he wouldn’t be able to, what with Seonghwa in his head.

He suppressed his sigh and lets it come out through his nose instead.

Seonghwa begins to draw circles and made-up polygons on Yeosang’s shoulder through the fabric of his sweater, knowing what helped him fall asleep out of the many times they’ve taken naps together, his chest rising and falling slowly. Seonghwa can’t help but stare at him, at his messy auburn hair and his cheeks the color of carnation. He really liked Yeosang, liked everything he did and said and everything he couldn’t do and never talked about. He smiled like corona, like the sun reflecting off of rainwater puddles in the morning, and his heart was made of gold and brilliant silvers and the most precious materials in the world and the prettiest jewels in between. He was everything Seonghwa wanted in a person, and he’d just been holding onto the fact that Yeosang still stuck with him after senior year.

And as Seonghwa’s tracing slowed in his thought, Yeosang finds it hard to believe he can’t sleep. He’s really trying, but he can’t help but think of Seonghwa and how he’s right underneath him. He isn’t doing much either, just being his best friend, whatever.

Hm.

Yeosang drifts, pretty harshly if he’s being honest, and begins to think of all the homework he has and everything Mingi told him about Yunho and Hongjoong today and Seonghwa’s outfit and the song he heard on the radio yesterday on the way to work on the public bus that he really liked but couldn’t get the name of. 

He sighed again, his eyes fluttering open and getting used to the light darkness of the room, the annoyance of wanting to sleep but being blocked by, what? Yourself? Yeah, it was irritating.

“Hwa, I can’t sleep.”

Seonghwa blinks, snaps out of his wonderland made up of Yeosang and Yeosang and even more Yeosang, and smiles, even though Yeo can’t see it.

“I figured. You’re breathing really fast.” Seonghwa continues to draw more circles on his back, moving down slightly toward his spine and goosebumps scatter on his skin, like popping bath suds on the water.

Yeosang opens his eyes, a little wider because Seonghwa knew him so well, he wonders if he knew as much about Seonghwa as he thinks. 

“I’m tired, though.” Yeo pouts, and focuses his attention on the light kick drum in Seonghwa’s chest, calming, like the heartbeat of the ocean when she sends out steady waves at dusk.

“We could talk until you sleep. I’m very good at talking. A lot. You know that.” Seonghwa breathes out a smile, and his voice was lazy and reminded Yeosang of cherry blossoms when they fall from trees, and he brings his hand up to play with Yeosang’s hair now, his other hand holding onto his back to keep him from falling over.

Yeosang sometimes wishes he had that talent. He never talked to anyone except Mingi and Seonghwa, and even then, the conversations were minimal. Yeosang nods in response, adjusts his head in Seonghwa’s chest and shuts his eyes again.

“Remember that time in senior year when Jooheon laughed so hard that he shot soda from his nose? I think about that a lot.” Seonghwa doesn’t laugh, but he says it as more of a statement, and Yeosang smiles because he  _ does _ remember, and he remembers how he almost threw up from laughing so hard with them.

That had been one of the few times Yeosang decided to go out and try to make friends, actually put in the effort to laugh with them and talk and make jokes with them. And Seonghwa knew he was trying, but he had really nice friends back then who made it seem effortless to build a friendship with him, as if he’d known them for years, even if he hadn’t talked much before. And seeing Seonghwa be real with them, from another perspective, made Yeosang respect him even more, and the everglow in his heart grew as he became more comfortable with them.

He hasn’t seen or heard from Jooheon since those few weeks spending lunch with him and his other friend, Wooseok. Last he knew, Jooheon was going to university upstate and Wooseok was out to find work as soon as he was out of high school. Yeosang hoped they loved the rush of freedom as much as he did, and found what they were looking for. They deserved it.

Everyone deserved it.

“Yeah. Lee Jooheon, right? He was funny. I kind of miss him...now that we’re t-talking about him.”

“We still talk sometimes.” Seonghwa shrugs, eyes flicking back and forth across the ceiling. “Not as much, but sometimes.”

“Do you...do you still talk to Hyejin?” She pops up, the talk of people from high school making a few memorable people stand out. 

He had a feeling that nobody really talked to Hyejin save for the popular kids, but somehow, maybe Seonghwa probably said hi to her once. He didn’t know.

Seonghwa ends up shaking his head anyway. “She was too cool for me. Always hung out with the party people and did crazy shit, dated hot girls. Kinda scary.”

Yeosang nods. “Like Chaerin.”

“Just like Chaerin. Hot and scary.”

Yeosang smiles again, but he stopped trying to sleep a while ago. He’s haphazardly watching the mayor freak out about something Jack was doing and reading the yellow captions that were so out of place, but yet belonged and looked perfect against the dark navies and violets of the movie. His throat felt dry and his heart was slowing down, but he remembered that he was with Seonghwa and it nearly skyrockets again, just like that.

Yeosang can’t  _ possibly _ be this nervous around his  _ roommate _ . 

It’s literally been a year since they began to live together, and he feels like he should be used to this, yet Yeosang can’t help but go back to senior year, back to how he felt and how stupid he thought he was.

Turns out he was just as stupid, if not, more.

“Do you think if you never responded to my messages, we would still be friends?”

Yeosang stops for a second, breath hitching. He blinks twice, and in his short time contemplating, he thinks that they wouldn’t. Or, maybe, they would. Mingi and Seonghwa were friends before they met. Maybe, in some strange twist of events that only happened in the movies, they would be friends, even without the messages. Maybe things would be different if they hadn’t met that way. 

“Probably not.” Yeosang says, making a face because he really didn’t know the answer to a question like that, no matter how many times he thought to come about it.

He decides that they definitely wouldn’t, because Seonghwa was his only friend apart from Mingi, and getting Mingi was pretty difficult for him. He wasn’t one to go out looking for anyone. 

He was too busy searching for himself to do that.

“You were the only one who answered. I got ignored. Everyone sucks.”

“Yeah, well. You get used to it.”

Seonghwa shrugs and stops his movements of Yeosang’s hair, picking up a little bit of it and watching the strands fall back onto his head. They’re in silence for a moment, Yeosang glancing at the thin white curtains that covered their apartment window, then to the chipped white, milky paint near the black trim of it.

This apartment was pretty good for the price, though it had a few hiccups here and there. But what doesn’t? Seonghwa had connections here, so it wasn’t hard to lease it and get a better deal than most. It was nice; a little big for the two of them, but it worked out.

“Thank you, Yeo.”

“Hm?” Yeosang’s eyebrows come together, hoping that Seonghwa hadn’t said anything before that and he had been too in his head to really hear it. “For what?” 

Yeosang waits for him, and Seonghwa runs a hand through Yeosang’s hair again, soft and telling, and it makes Yeosang’s stomach churn and his body’s beginning to warm again. “For answering.” He shrugs. “I was going through like...I don’t know.” He shrugs once more, telling Yeosang that he was uncomfortable with the situation, but wanted to talk about it anyway. “I was sad a lot back then. Thinking about a lot of things for way too long.”

Yeosang remembers that Seonghwa  _ did _ tell him about that, and about all the times he wanted to tell his mom to try and help him but he was scared of wasting her time. Seonghwa’s mother was beautiful, inside and out, and very sweet and understanding, kept up with the times and wasn’t stuck in her old ways. But Yeosang could understand why he was reluctant to tell her. 

She sometimes didn’t listen as much as she should.

“I’m glad you feel better. And that you’re still with me.” Yeosang moves his head so that his chin was resting on Seonghwa’s chest instead of his cheek, peering up at him with a small grin and Seonghwa nearly loses his breath again.

He stops playing with Yeosang’s hair once his heart picks up for what seems like the millionth time that day, palms beginning to clam up just at the way Yeosang is smiling at him. But he never looks away from him. He beams back at him, the one that makes his lips look more rosy (as Yeosang pointed out on their way to dinner once), and he knows he’s got that stupid crease on the side of his mouth, but Yeosang was something else and he couldn’t stop it.

Yeosang scoots forward, landing right next to his face and hugs him a little tighter, hiding his face in the crook of his neck as he shuts his eyes again. It was fitting - your best friend tells you again that he was sad and that you helped him out more than you knew, so you  _ had  _ to hug him. 

You had to.

Seonghwa feels like he’s on clouds, like he’s floating on the fluffiest fair-weather cumulus the world would have created just for him, in the brightest skies made of azure and hidden stars that bloomed like diamonds in the atmosphere. He’s always walking on air with Yeosang, finds it incredible how such a shy, quiet boy makes him feel the most confident and loud, like he was the only one in the world who could have such a boy like Yeo as his friend. 

He loved Yeosang a lot.

“I love you, Hwa. I’ll be here for you all the time, okay?”

Seonghwa giggles, breathing in the aroma of green apples and thinks back to high school when he used to tease him for his fruit shampoos, but he thought it fit someone like him well. He throws his arms around Yeosang, his chest filling and  _ god,  _ he didn’t deserve him.

“I love you more, Bun. I hope I do as much for you.”

And while Seonghwa was trying to organize his thoughts and control his head, Yeosang was just trying to think of how to paint two people lying on the couch like this after his last painting was done.


	5. distractions.

It’s been two weeks since Yeosang and Seonghwa last slept on that couch together.

It’s been two weeks since they’ve gone out to eat dinner or watched a movie together. It’s been two weeks since they’ve really _seen_ each other, and most importantly, it’s been two weeks since the weather was clear and Yeosang was dealing with it the worst. He was shaking today, under his blue blanket to shut out the cold of the apartment, blocking out the rattling windows and heavy winds with his hands, clammed in nerves and anxiety and trembling with worry as they cupped over his ears.

He hears nothing, yet his ears are on fire with everything at the highest decibels.

The snow’s been relentless for the past two days. Last night brought the lowest of it, blurred darkness and ashy clouds, and it was ugly, and the snow fell so hard that it rattled their windows sometimes and covered the dorms across from them. This morning, it turned back into rain with the weird shifts in the weather and something about the gravity of Earth during its rotation on its axis (Yeosang never really knew, to be honest). They’ve been trapped in here, school getting canceled until the storm was over and Yeosang was barely being able to manage it.

Ever since he was a kid, he was never good with any kind of storm. 

With the windows rattling and the thought of being trapped in his own home, it made his scalp itch and his skin tingle and his fingers numb and he hated thinking about it. 

He scratched his head too hard, electric, but at least the itch was gone for now. 

He’s gotten better with it, Seonghwa buying him a huge teddy bear a while ago from one of those mixed grocery stores and he’s been using it since then to help him out. He didn’t have a name for it, it just depended on his mood for the day on what he called it. He liked preoccupying himself instead of listening to the storm and all the sounds it brought with him and all the birds that were probably freezing and the flowers that were gonna die away. He didn’t know why he thought so much about it.

He hated it.

He’s lying in bed, gnawing on his bottom lip (discarding the taste of his cheap pineapple chapstick) and thinking about a million different things, all of his lights off and the paintings on his walls blind. He’s holding onto his teddy bear, eyes shut as he buries his face in the synthetic fur, and thinks about whether or not it was a good idea to turn off his fairy lights. His thoughts are just as bitter as the world outside of his window, swarming like wasps, and he squeezes his eyes shut, hearing himself shake, hearing himself give out. 

_It’s just a little water. Come on, man._

There’s a knock at his door, and soon he’s only thinking about one thing for a moment.

“Come...come in.”

He says it as if he’s not on the verge of a breakdown and he wasn’t just thinking of the worst-case scenarios of this storm a few seconds ago. He leans up, uncovers himself from his blanket and feels awful, a headache coming on and a tear streaking down his face from his time in his head, clutching onto his teddy bear. When the door is pushed open, Seonghwa’s standing there, clearly having just woken up, a cup of orange juice in his hand (with extra pulp, to Yeosang’s _disgust_ ), his ebony hair messy and his eyes were still puffy and pink from sleep. He has a book in his other hand, _The Priory of the Orange Tree,_ and Yeosang knows what he’s here for. 

Seeing his tired face was like seeing the sun in the downpour that was going on in his head.

“Hi. I’ve come because I know how you are during storms. And I haven’t seen you in a while. I miss you”

Seonghwa could barely see Yeo in the dark like this, and he uses the light from the hallway to palm at the wall beside his door frame. He finds the switch for the fairy lights that hung loosely around his room because Yeosang didn’t like the dark all that much either, and flips it. The room is encased in the prettiest light that Seonghwa has ever come to know, cozy and beautiful and warm and he feels like he’s somewhere else, where he can’t be scared, despite the horrible sounds outside and the memories that might surface with Yeosang and the storm.

“Hi, Bunny. How are you holding up?” Seonghwa climbs into Yeosang’s bed, barely big enough for Yeosang himself since he sleeps like he’s made of spiders, spread out, but he makes it work and fits himself next to Yeosang, moving the covers so that he wasn’t sitting on them, bunching them up beside him.

Seonghwa brings his hand up to cup Yeosang’s face, and wipes the tear from it, as if it was routine, and somehow - his fingers of suede and his look inviting - that makes Yeosang feel terrible, that he’s putting Seonghwa in a situation like this.

_Again._

“I’m...I’m okay. I’m fine.” Yeosang tells him, adding a little nod to it because he really was fine now, despite probably looking like trash.

He wasn’t okay about a minute ago. But he’s cool.

“Are you seriously?”

Seonghwa looks at him with concern, his eyes are bright against the fairy lights and his lips have turned into cherry skin when he offers a small smile. The darkness shadows his face in just the right way, to where Yeosang could see his faint freckles and his pretty shaped eyes and the pink blush color that took to his cheeks. Yeosang would normally stop to admire Seonghwa, like how he would with flowers, when his chest wasn’t hurting and his head wasn’t churning. He wished he could stare at Seonghwa’s rose petal cheeks and the orchids that bloomed in his eyes whenever he spoke. He wished he could stare at his marigold smile and the budding sunflowers in his chest every time he was around him. 

He hoped he had time to stop for him later.

“Yes. I’m better now. Th-thank you, Hwa.”

“Are you hot? You’ve been under the blankets for a while.”

“The apartment is freezing.”

“Okay, that is true. But when—”

He’s interrupted by thunder, screaming at them with such animosity that it makes Yeosang flinch, and while the windows rattle for the nth time that morning, it feels like the roof is going to cave. 

It feels like _he_ is going to cave. 

Another tear leaves his right eye and he wishes he could stop crying, like when he’s sick and his eyes just start watering and he doesn’t know why but he hates it because it feels like he’s melting. Seonghwa grabs the blue blankets that have been pooled by his feet as he sat, throwing them over himself and Yeosang, feeling the slight weight of such a big cover on the top of his head, flattening down his bed hair. He looks at Yeosang, the blanket thin enough to brush him in turquoise, and Seonghwa thinks he looks just as pretty dimmed as he is glowing.

Yeosang’s looking at the mattress, over Seonghwa’s baby blue shark socks and his own lavender flower pot ones, taking everything in and too much all the same, and his scalp is itching again and he wants to suffocate, but he could breathe, barely. His fingertips feel like they’re made of the static that runs in the television when you change it to the wrong channel, and he feels like he’s falling into himself, like a pool of darkness with no bottom to graze his toes over. 

He’s falling, he’s alone, and he feels like screaming. 

The thunder hits again, and Yeosang squeezes his eyes shut, flinches once more and bows his head, to try and protect himself from the storm, drown it out a bit. And while he’s thinking of the entire apartment complex being destroyed from the top down by the insane amount of rain and thunder beating down on the city, he doesn’t even realize he’s shaking until Seonghwa holds his hands out, his palms up for Yeosang to take, and he smiles when Yeosang rests both of his trembling hands in his, not knowing what he was going to do, but opted for holding onto a little of his safety rather than nothing at all.

“Let’s count, yeah?”

Yeosang only nods, because he’s too scared to speak now, and Seonghwa makes a face as he thinks of what to say. The thunder seems to be getting louder and the lightning flashes like voltage through him, lighting up the room and making Yeosang clench his teeth together. He wishes there was a hole to hide in another room without windows he could lock forever. 

But he could only hide in Seonghwa for now.

“Five things to hear.”

His voice sounds like a whisper against Yeosang’s thoughts, jumbled and swarming like a hive of angry wasps, stinging and burning and _god,_ he wanted them gone. He needed to get out of here. He’s so itchy and he feels himself begin to sweat and the thunder was getting _so_ loud. 

He doesn’t know if he could keep up.

“Th-thunder,” Yeosang’s vision is kind of blurry. “And my...heart. It’s…” he swallows, throat dry and almost choking, “...fast in my ears. And I h-hear…” Yeosang swallows, embarrassed that he couldn’t handle storms like Seonghwa or Mingi or any other normal person could, getting more upset the more he wanted to calm down. 

“Try to calm down, Bun. Breathe with me? You have three left.” Seonghwa’s voice feels like melted gold and he’s stroking small circles onto the back of Yeosang’s hand that reminds him of a day in autumn where the wind is soft and he could breathe in everything, from the tempered sun around the balmy afternoon, ivory clouds dripping off of the atmosphere and reflecting the apricot light the sun brought, to the speckled daisies that littered public parks and the flower pots beside coffee shops.

And he does. He breathes in with Seonghwa when he cues. It doesn’t help, but he thinks the fact that Seonghwa really sitting down with him and trying was the one thing that made him feel a little bit better.

“Your voice. And the sound of you...rustling the sheets. And...m-my…” Yeosang remembers the autumn day. “I’m breathing.”

“Perfect. Four things to see.”

“You.” Seonghwa offers a promising nod and it feels surreal to have him here, just them, and the storm seems to be getting worse but Yeosang is okay. He looks down at their feet, his legs tightly crossed while one of Seonghwa’s was bent and the other was stretched out to the side of him. “Flowers and sharks. Black hair.”

“Good.” Seonghwa brings up Yeosang’s left hand and kisses the back of it, their fingers together and his hands didn’t feel as gross anymore. “Three things to feel.”

Yeosang loses his train of thought as Seonghwa brushes his thumb over the taught skin of Yeosang’s hand, intimidating in such a reassuring gesture. He thinks Seonghwa is crazy. 

“Your hands…” He remembers, he’s got two more. “The...the blanket, and...my face. It’s warm. It’s hot.”

“You want some of my orange juice?”

“Bleh, I’d rather dehydrate.”

“Hey! Don’t talk about her like that, she’s right there!” Seonghwa lowers his voice to a whisper as if there was actually someone else in here, and Yeosang can’t help but smile and look at the mattress again because his face really was warm but he was starting to think that maybe it wasn’t because he’d been crying.

Seonghwa’s just glad Yeosang was finally smiling for him.

“Tell her I said I’m sorry.”

“She says she’ll forgive you, _maybe,_ if you tell her two things you could taste.”

That little break in between the seriousness made Yeosang go back to being on the couch with him, or the beach, and for a moment, he forgets that there wasn’t a fearful storm outside, and that it _wasn’t_ just a normal, lazy Sunday morning together. He licks his lips, the ghost of all of his anxieties and nervousness settled somewhere else within him, and he’s slowly getting back to shore, slowly getting back to a world where the stars were the only thing to be wary of.

He licks his lips.

“Pineapple. I think.” He makes little sounds with his mouth, remembering the weird taste that he’d forgotten about until now. “One-hundred percent alcoholic mouthwash.”

“Okay, that works. Are you feeling better?”

Yeosang shuts his eyes and nods, letting go of Seonghwa’s hands and opting for hugging him instead, resting his head in the crook of his neck, and suddenly, the storm is gone. Suddenly, they’re in autumn again, and there are daisies past his feet and the most lovely lilies on the ponds around them, and the sky is a beautiful turquoise and the sun is dimmer but it’s there and he loves it. Seonghwa hugs him, and he missed this feeling for the past two weeks, and he’s warm with the most dazzling halos as Seonghwa softens against him. It’s weird, how everything changes the minute Yeosang is with him. Seonghwa hugs him tight, spilling the past two weeks of loneliness and yearning into him and he feels more than better.

If a simple hug makes his world radiate, Seonghwa would hold onto him forever.

“One thing to smell, love.”

Yeosang opens his eyes again, feeling the cloth of Seonghwa’s sweater on his cheek, trying to focus on the air but he doesn’t have a name for it. He breathes in once, then twice. 

“You.”

Seonghwa smiles wide, Yeosang feeling it against his hair. “It is gross?”

Yeosang shakes his head once, thinking of what to say. “No. Smells like…” he blinks, eyes flicking back and forth between the folds in where the blanket met his pillows, running over the sheets and really trying to think. “...smells like home.” 

Seonghwa’s heart picks up and he’s staring into the blanket across from him, at a loss. 

Home, huh? 

Seonghwa doesn’t know what he’s feeling, but he could only think of purple sunsets and pink candle wax clouds and green-pink streaks across the navy aurora nights of Alaska and falling out of the sky into crystal, tranquil waters when he thinks of him. He thinks of unsolicited smiles and naps on hammocks in the afternoon sun. He thinks of hot coffee on a cold day, or bedsheets out of the dryer. Everything that he loved, small, but which he held the most fondness for, comes to mind when he thinks of Yeosang. He doesn’t know what it is, but he’s never really had the feeling outside of their apartment. Seonghwa hadn’t known what _that_ felt like, yet, but he hopes he finds it soon.

He hopes to figure it out very soon.

Seonghwa kisses the top of his head softly, like he was made to be here with him, under the covers, in their own little fortress in the form of cotton and thread. And they’re speaking to each other, but in the way in which Yeosang liked more than Seonghwa didn’t mind. Seonghwa brings a hand up and smoothes it over Yeosang’s hair, over his warmed face and he stops at Yeosang’s cheek, stroking a thumb over the apple as he pulls back to look at him. Yeosang’s eyes flick back and forth over his face, and Seonghwa hopes he doesn’t look too disheveled and _too_ much like he just woke up from bed. 

It’s selfish, but he hopes he looks as pretty to Yeosang as he does to him.

“I missed you.” Yeosang was the first to speak, voice soft and level. He leans into his hand, and it feels different this time, different than their normal routine of touching each other and making the other feel wanted. It was their dynamic, it’s what they did.

The air was disparate now. 

There was something weird in the way Seonghwa brushed the hair away from his forehead, how he smooths his fingers over his sensitive skin, how he looks at him like he was made of glass, like he was the most inestimable gem the world had ever uncovered and it made him feel like maybe, he really was worth Seonghwa’s time. He felt less bad about having Seonghwa come in here and calm him down, because if, in the end, Seonghwa looked at him this once like how he did nearly every day, it was worth it.

“Me, too, Bun. We live together, but… I’ve barely seen you lately.”

Yeosang remembers again that it’s been two weeks since they’ve done something together. The couch, the dinners, the beach, the walks, everything. And it was then when he realized that he missed him more than being here. Seonghwa was the better half of him, the constellations and planets to the vast seas and raw diamonds below the Earth’s surface, and he thinks that might be part of the reason why the storm had hit him so badly tonight.

He didn’t know. He missed him.

“Let’s go out once this storm clears. Restaurant or something.”

And he looks at Yeosang as if he wants to say something more, or touch his hair again. Seonghwa can’t help looking at Yeosang’s strawberry lips and how they drip with every word he says as if they’re handcrafted specially for him. Yeosang was everything Seonghwa loved and hated and enjoyed, he was everything Seonghwa had been waiting for and wanting, everything he needed and everything he loved. Yeosang was his very best friend and soul, and he never thought about losing him, really. He never thought about that, like normal people do, losing someone you love so much. He hoped he wouldn’t ever _have_ to think about it.

He loved Yeosang a lot.

And that feeling that only arose in their apartment, the feeling that only arose with _him_ , was bubbling up in his chest and his heart was through the stars that he sees in Yeosang, and he wants to kiss him again but he’s scared. He’s scared of unwanted memories boiling back up, scared of it becoming true, scared of it leaking out of their windows and down the stairs to their neighbors and across the state to his parents and family back home.

He’s really scared of Yeosang.

But he does it anyway, blames it on the fact that they were protected by the blankets, by the rain and by the third floor. Yeosang finds himself pressed against Seonghwa, cradled in stars that he only dreamt of touching and melting in waterfalls, eyes shut and good, unsinkable. It was the kind of good that comes in the form of glimmering gold and spring leaves in the April winds. 

The kind of good that comes in the form of Seonghwa. 

He was shaking, but it wasn’t the type that the storm brings. It was more like the type that you get when you’re on a rollercoaster or you’re about to skydive. Seonghwa was so exciting to him, he couldn’t help it. 

Seonghwa kisses him slowly, like how the tide breathes against the taupe shores at night, and he pulls back slightly just to press his lips against his again, and again, and again, leaning softly into Yeosang as he holds his face in his hand. Yeosang unconsciously found purchase in Seonghwa’s sweater, fingers curled into the fabric as he kisses him under the blanket, lightly leaning back with the light force Seonghwa was bleeding into him. 

Yeosang feels like this was the most he’s ever told Seonghwa in his life.

He breathes through his nose once, and pulls back a little, his lips ghosting over Seonghwa’s mouth, but he holds on to his neck and kisses him one more time, as if he was sweet honey and needed just a _little_ more to be okay. Yeosang’s heart felt full, his eyes a little wide when he realizes that it was his roommate who he just kissed under the blankets in the midst of the worst weather the town had ever seen. Seonghwa smiles, his rose petal lips curled in a way that makes Yeosang’s stomach soar, makes him soar above the clouds and the constellations that ornament the starry nighttime, and he wants to kiss him again.

“What-“ Yeosang breathes out a soft giggle, more of one in trying to diffuse the situation because his face had to have been a million degrees by now. 

He lets go of Seonghwa and opts for hiding his face in his neck again.

“Since high school. Only took me two years. New record.” Seonghwa’s lips are still upturned in a small grin, and Yeosang wonders how someone could keep their cool like this, as if it was a regular morning and there wasn’t loads of rain washing over their apartment right now.

“I-“

“Was that okay? I should have asked earlier, I’m sorr-“

Yeosang kisses him for the nth time that night, the storm singing behind them, and despite Yeosang hating the noise, he found comfort in the way the rain hit the glass of the windows and how he was shadowed in dark cerulean with Seonghwa and how the thunder rumbled his body. 

He decided to call his teddy bear Hwa for today.

Maybe for tomorrow and the next day, too.


	6. it's just prom.

It was Thursday today.

There was no class again, and the storm was reduced back to a light snowfall, but they were still blocked in. Yeosang finds comfort in the fact that there was no deafening noise and there was no thunder jarring the windows. Seonghwa had taken it upon himself to get into Yeosang’s bed after he drank his orange juice for the morning, kissing his face until he woke up, talking about aliens and mermaids when he was waiting for him to brush his teeth, until he finally got him to stay in his room rather than go paint something. Yeosang finds it stupid in himself how it only took a _please stay, Bun!_ to get him to spend more time in bed. 

The painting could wait, he supposed.

Seonghwa has him in his arms, staring at his fairy lights and pretending they were stars, because they couldn’t really go see the stars tonight like they would have planned for. Yeosang’s curled against him, knees brought up slightly so that they were intertwined with Seonghwa’s, cheek pressed on his shoulder as he watches him. 

Yeosang does that a lot, finds himself studying Seonghwa and taking in his air and his Earth and his space. He thinks black hair looked perfect on him, thinks his eyes were pretty and loved to see the color his cheeks turned during the winter. 

And as he studies the fairy light constellations, Yeosang finds looking at his profile just as breathtaking as looking at Orion.

“Hey, how come we never go to your room?” Yeosang voice is soft, and he wants to add _is there a secret weapon you’re making that I should know about?_ but he doesn’t because he thinks it sounds lame, and by the time he gets the courage to go about saying it, Seonghwa’s already opening his mouth to respond.

He stops.

“Maybe I have a secret weapon or something that will take out all the mosquitoes in the world. No more itchy bites with a simple push of a button. Just don’t tell Yeosang.” 

_Come on._

Seonghwa glances at Yeosang, takes in his expression and can’t help the grin that grew, and he looks back to the fairy lights before he makes it obvious. Yeosang giggles, thinking his conversations with Seonghwa made less sense the more they were trapped in their apartment, as if there was something in the air. And with the way his heart felt as if it was made of the downiest feathers, of the airiest bubbles with just a smile from him, Yeosang begins to think that maybe he liked Seonghwa more than he really thought.

“I won’t tell Yeosang.”

Yeosang turns, his head still in Seonghwa’s arm, but he’s looking up at the fairy lights and creating even more constellations in his head, when Seonghwa bends his arm at the elbow and rests his hand on Yeosang’s shoulder. Yeosang blinks, snaps out of his head when he feels the sudden pressure, then looks to Seonghwa. He was staring at him, eyes glossed, thinking and somewhat sleepy. He had been thinking in that short time, putting his thoughts and worries into the fairy lights and letting them dissipate throughout the room.

“I wanna take you on a date soon.”

Yeosang swallows, remembering the last time they were in here together, thankful that the lights were dim and that Seonghwa couldn’t really study his face from that angle. He hopes that his heart wasn’t too loud in their quiet room, realizing that they were probably going to go on more dates soon and probably going to kiss a lot more, too.

He can’t handle it.

“Okay.”

“No, like. A real date. Like the dates you go on before I ask you to be my boyfriend.”

Yeosang gasps softly, his heart plunging as he turns over on his side, leaning up on his elbow and looking at Seonghwa. He doesn’t know why, but he thinks it’s because he doesn’t know if Seonghwa was serious. He doesn’t know if Seonghwa really wanted to go on a real date with him. 

He was insecure about stuff like that, and it shows and Seonghwa knew it. He smiles softly when he catches Yeosang’s gaze, resisting the urge to chuckle at how surprise Yeosang had been.

“What?”

“Yeah. Date.”

“Like...boyfriend?”

“Yeah. But date first.” Seonghwa’s looking back up at the fairy lights, lightly roaming his hand back and forth above his shoulder, goosebumps dancing around Yeosang’s taught skin once he lies back down on his side.

“Okay.” He says. “Date. Tomorrow night, after homework.”

“We can’t skip homework?” Seonghwa faces him again, despite Yeosang staring at the wall and already thinking about tomorrow night. 

“Skip homework?” Yeosang snaps out of his thoughts for a second, looking st Seonghwa incredulously at the thought of doing something fun before doing homework, especially on a weekend, when you have a lot more time. “You’d rather a boyfriend or an A plus?”

“Boyfriend.”

“Okay,” Yeosang raises his eyebrows, because he really didn’t expect an answer so fast, but he also didn’t expect anything else, “we’ll skip homework.”

Just for tomorrow night.

“And I’ll take you to the moon in my private jet.”

By private jet, Yeosang knew that meant the public bus. And by the moon, Yeosang knew that meant dinner and a pillow fort with old movies because that was Yeosang’s number one favorite thing to do with him. And every time, he looks forward to it. Seonghwa’s still lightly grazing Yeosang’s shoulder with his fingers, adding a little more warmth to him and making him want to sleep. And he begins to, wrapped in him, shifting his feet in his blanket, and his eyes are shut for what seems like three seconds before Seonghwa speaks again.

“You know, I regret not going to prom with you that night.”

Yeosang’s full awake now, heart is beating against his chest, his pulse about to explode out of his jaw and through his ears. Sure, he doesn’t expect a lot of things, but good god, he didn’t anticipate this. Why now? What reason did he have? 

And before Yeosang can tell him to forget it, he’s talking again.

“I wanted to. I wanted to dance with you and get drunk at the afterparty with our friends and walk to the shitty burger joint with you and hold your hair out of your face while you threw up in the toilet.” Yeosang grimaces, Seonghwa chuckles and runs a free hand through his hair. “I wanted to wake up and see you trashed the next morning so we could go get medicine together and spend the day in the hotel room and watch movies. I wanted to go to the beach with you at night and drive the road trip back with you so we could be tired for school the next day and remember it during a really important test that we get distracted from. I really wanted to go with you. I hope you understand that. If I could do it again...”

“It’s okay, Hwa. I know why you didn’t. I get it.” Yeosang fucking hated talking about prom because it was such a huge deal to him back then. It was such a big deal and Seonghwa completely screwed him over. 

But he got it. He understood it, even if he wished things were different. Besides, it was just prom. He probably didn’t miss much, even if every single senior he knew went. 

It was just prom.

“I’m not like that anymore. I’m comfortable with myself now. I’m sorry that I was shitty.”

This wasn’t the first apology Seonghwa has given him over prom. Yeosang received an apology right before he answered him when he asked back in senior year, and then again right after he answered him, and then again the day after when they were playing video games together after school, and then a week later when Mingi was showing them prom pictures with a girl, and then again last year, when they were both drunk during a party. And every time, Yeosang hugged him, threw his arms around him and told him that it was fine, because he didn’t really know how else to do it. 

He thought that it would help him not feel so bad. 

Seonghwa never expected it, even though it happened every time he apologized for it, and even now, when Yeosang had turned over and had his head buried in his neck and his arms around his waist for the seemed like the millionth time in the span of three years, Seonghwa didn’t expect to feel the way he did, only in this apartment. He hugs Yeosang, hides his mouth in his hair, kissing his head and staring into the wall.

Yeosang never says anything, but with the way he shuts his eyes, lashes fluttering against Seonghwa’s throat, he gets it. He tells him, again, that it was okay. And Seonghwa likes to think that Yeosang still believes in him, even if he never says anything. Seonghwa turns, so that he’s facing Yeosang, and throws his other arm around him. They do stuff like this all the time, but this one felt different, like a different room and a different person was with Yeosang. 

He seemed to fall in love with him again when Seonghwa kisses his forehead this time, the room silent, yet so loud with him here.

“I’ll make it up to you, Bun.” He tells him, lips pressed against his skin, thinking into the walls as he eyes roamed down the wall to the fairy lights.

“You already have.”

And Seonghwa doesn’t know if he means right now or something else that happened within the three years they’ve been nearly connected at the hip, but he takes the weight of what he said and doubles it, keeps it in his heart, and tonight he thinks that maybe he was in love with Yeosang after all this time.


	7. love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!
> 
> there is one (1) more chapter left, and then this little au is done! thank you for reading this far, and leaving comments! i really appreciate that you took time for this, and that people are liking it so far, despite the writing style being a little weird. 
> 
> pls enjoy!
> 
> p.s. there's mention of drug use and there is alcohol in this chapter. it's nothing to a negative effect, but i had to have a party scene in this au just because! please stay safe, and do not read this chapter if you feel uncomfortable!!!

_ “Hwa!”  _

It’s been three months since Seonghwa asked Yeosang to be his boyfriend. It’s been three months since Seonghwa began holding Yeosang’s hand on the way to class and kissing his face in the middle of the study hall, doing many unnecessary and unexpected things to him that elicit unsolicited smiles that Yeosang hides behind his hands. It’s been three months since Seonghwa found even more happiness within Yeosang, like finding treasure on a sunken ship at the bottom of the sea. Being around him gave him clarity, a new sense of it compared to the past few years with him, compared to the past few months being his boyfriend.

Being  _ his. _

And it’s been three months since Seonghwa last talked to his parents.

The phone call home wasn’t good, and the texts they sent to him after were even worse, to put it lightly. Yeosang had never seen Seonghwa cry and feel so worthless that he’s nearly ripping out his hair, and sobbing so loudly that his eyes were stained glass and his face painted in poppy, but in a sick way, and the television couldn’t even drown it out. He thought that was the worst thing he could have ever experienced, worse than stuttering during a presentation and tripping on the way to throw out his used tissues.

Like a storm within the walls of their haven.

Yeosang remembers holding him for what seemed like the whole day, maybe the early morning, too, as it bled into the daytime and made him feel like he wasn’t really connected with the world as they lost track of time, and it was only when Seonghwa’s tummy started growling and overpowering the strengths of his sobs that he was able to get him out of bed and cook him food. 

_ “Come on, honey. We gotta get you food.” _

_ “I c-can’t. Can’t…” Seonghwa presses his hands to his eyes with such pressure that Yeosang believes he has to be seeing the tiny silver spots behind his eyelids, and his voice was hoarse, like paper set on fire, burning and desperate. _

_ His heart was broken, and he was sure Seonghwa’s was too, far too damaged and way beyond repair. He felt like he had been holding onto a pile of broken bones, shattered beliefs and guilty disappointment, rather than the boy he’s come to love so easily.  _

_ So easily, as he was to destroy. _

_ “You’re okay. You’re okay,” Yeosang whispered to him, trying to calm him down, lightly pressing his hand to his hair and smoothing soft kisses over his forehead as he hid behind his hands, hid from the world in Yeosang’s chest, cried into him and had him soak up his thunders and lightning. _

_ Yeosang wasn’t very good at this, usually, he’d let Seonghwa do all the touchy stuff that came with being together, but he decided that, for now, he didn’t mind it so much.  _

_ He kisses his forehead again, lingering, to try and talk to him without saying much, since he had said everything he could already. It got them here, from the teary mess that was Seonghwa now to the slightly inconsolable and wrecked, but at least it was something. _

_ It was progress. _

_ “I’m gonna go make you food. Your tummy is rumbling.” _

_ And Seonghwa had told him that he would throw up if he ate, but Yeosang was still able to slowly detach from him, his warm feet hitting the cold wooden floor beneath them and it felt like an ice rink with no skates, compared to how hot the bed had been from being there all day (days? Yeosang didn’t know).  _

_ He was able to convince Seonghwa to down a bowl of soup that he had made from the Ramen packages and vegetables in their fridge, and he thought that it worked enough to settle him for a little. _

_ He found Seonghwa crying as the shower was running later in the day, but at least it  _ **_settled him for a little._ **

_ He just doesn’t know how to settle him from here on out. _

It was more than sad for Yeosang, but he’d stuck with Seonghwa through the rain and he thinks that the little speeches he gives him about how much he meant to him until his voice was shot were worth it.

He thought Seonghwa was more than worth it.

Apart from memories that Yeosang decided not to plagiarize with acrylic paint, today was someone’s birthday, Yunho, he thinks, and Mingi had convinced him to invite a couple more people that he didn’t know into his apartment. The room was bathed in a runny tourmaline light, red and blue strobes scampering across faces and streaming into souls. Cups full of regret and hazy memory were the staple here, keeping sweaty bodies in the middle of the apartment while indie EDM bounced against the walls and crashed into high spirits. There were many faces attached to people that Yeosang had recognized, like Hyunwoo from American Literature and Yoongi from Studio Arts. Yeosang had a slight urge tugging at him to drink enough to be able to talk to them and maybe be friends with them, especially after Yeeun waved at him with a pretty smile on her face.

He got drunk anyway, lost memory between the first cup of juice and the fourth, and instead of mingling with strangers, he was spending time with Seonghwa, on the only empty loveseat in the apartment with him, and Seonghwa had pulled him onto his lap, kissing his cheeks and knowing how much he hated stuff like this in public because he blushed like it was nothing. 

“Come on, Bunny! Live a little, let’s go dance!” Seonghwa suddenly bounces both of his legs underneath Yeosang, and everything was multiplied by a million and a half, making Yeosang giggles because he felt like he was going to fall, though Seonghwa’s hands were on his waist so that he didn’t.

Seonghwa’s voice was more than barely audible underneath the carpet of EDM, vibrations rushing through Yeosang’s bones and rattling his chest, and he almost wants to sip more until he could get up and dance to it. Maybe. He was still coherent enough to know what killer hangovers felt like, so maybe not. Yeosang reaches to one of Seonghwa’s hands, lightly holding onto his first and playing with his second and third, out of, mainly, wanting something to distract himself from him.

“Do you…” Yeosang giggles again, pulling his face away from another kiss Seonghwa had pressed to his cheek, “really wanna go dancing?”

“No. The music is too slow.” Seonghwa says, and he paused his movements to listen to the music as if it hadn’t been playing all night.

Yeosang stares at him, at his tousled charcoal hair that sat under an even darker beanie, midnight in the physical form of a band tee and ripped pants to accompany it. Seonghwa was dressed in the darkest colors, yet, somehow glowed brightest among the lifted conversations and laughter that would be taken by the night and forgotten when the sun came up tomorrow. And just like that, Seonghwa stopped time for him, kept the Earth from spinning with just the way he was looking at him, now, as if everything in the world was tied up into him. Yeosang feels frozen, almost, but warmed, and he tightens his grip on Seonghwa’s fingers just a little, to remind him that other people were around and probably had curfews.

His clock ticks again.

“Th-they’re...they’re playing EDM.”

“Exactly. It’s too slow.” Seonghwa says, and Yeosang watches as his head follows a few people passing by them, too busy being heavy with alcohol or light from the nicotine kick a few cigarettes brought. “Hey, can you kiss me?”

Yeosang looks at him, eyebrows coming together, and Seonghwa’s eyes were puffed and porcelain, glossed, as he glanced once, then twice, at his mouth, then back up to his eyes. Yeosang could tell he was serious by the way he’s looking at him, but finds it strange how he could shift from complaining about terrible EDM to something like this. And to Yeosang, this was very out-of-his-zone, even for one who’d drunk at least half the punch bowl now. 

His heart speeds slowly, as if it was encased in resin and was trying to get out. He’s lethargic in response, yet, is beaming underneath the drunken haze that came with the juice here.

“Why?”

“I’m bored!”

Yeosang smiles again, this time, he’s sure there’s no reasoning behind it save for whatever strong stuff he finished from his last Red Solo cup, and softly presses his nose to Seonghwa’s. His chest nearly explodes at something so soft. Seonghwa tries to push forward for a real kiss rather than these, but misses Yeosang’s mouth and ends up pecking his jaw instead.

Yeosang laughs, throws his head back and everything, nearly slipping off of Seonghwa’s lap again as he pouts and furrows his eyebrows. He clutches onto the fabric of Seonghwa’s shirt, and his laughs come out as easy as breathing, like running water, and Seonghwa hides his face in the crook of Yeosang’s neck, not used to getting embarrassed like this (though he should be).

“Ugh, you’re...mean!” Seonghwa groans, and Yeosang’s about to retaliate until he sees someone coming awfully close to them to just be a stranger, and he looks down and sees how his and Seonghwa’s legs were crossed before looking up again into more black hair.

“Hey, crazy kids.” 

Mingi.

He looks like an alien, bathed in the dark pink lights and the alcohol in him makes him look like he’s a trillion feet tall from where they were on the couch. Yeosang almost forgot Mingi was here, and Yunho and Hongjoong were here, and everyone else that had been dancing and sharing the atmosphere and being a part of their world.

“Hi, Mingi.”

“Hey, G-gi.” Yeosang swallows, his throat giving off a small tinge when he does, the alcohol lingering and dancing on his tongue as he speaks.

“What are you guys doing? Go dance!” Mingi seems more relaxed, almost like a completely different person than what Yeosang sees on a near-daily basis. Normally quiet, normally kept to himself, normally thinking too much, was not thinking at all and enjoying himself with a cup of punch in his hand.

“I was gonna, but the music here is  _ too slow! _ ” Seonghwa complains, and if Yeosang wasn’t looking at him, he would think he even stomped his foot on the wooden flooring, like a child.

“What’s the time?” Mingi asks, almost way too quiet over the hums of the music, and Yeosang pats his left pocket for his phone, but it was empty, and he gasps softly, bringing Seonghwa’s attention over to him.

“What?” 

“My phone!”

“Right pocket...babes.” Seonghwa rests his head on Yeosang’s shoulder, shutting his eyes and wrapping his arms around his waist instead of just holding him, using him as a pillow as he slept for a second. 

Alcohol was either tiring or energizing, depending on the mood.

Yeosang pats his other pocket, and slowly makes an “o” shape with his mouth when he lands on it. Mingi is just looking at him, waiting for him to tell him the time as if being here at this party was a normal thing. It was a normal thing for Yeosang to forget where he put his phone, and it was a normal thing for everyone to move so slowly.

“It’s almost one!” Yeosang shouts, voice boggy, and Mingi nods while Seonghwa jumps, blinking and alert, though he looks sleepy still. 

“I’ll see you guys, then. If you’re staying!” 

“Do you want to?” Seonghwa leans in slightly to Yeosang’s ear, the specter of tequila shots on his breath as he speaks. 

Yeosang shudders and looks at their feet, focuses on the laces of his beat-up converse and studies the different patterns in Seonghwa’s vans.

“Yeah. It’s fine. Let’s go.” Yeosang had never really been a party person, to begin with, and, if anything, wanted to get out of here as soon as possible to avoid the possible comedown of his alcohol haze. 

“Okay, come.” 

“Bye, Mingi. We’re gonna leave. It’s early. I mean, late. It’s late!”

Mingi smiles at them, where his teeth would show and his eyes were grinning, too, before he waves at them. “Peace out, man. See you later. I’m gonna go find Yunho, okay?”

“Okay!”

Yeosang takes a second to wonder why Seonghwa wasn’t standing up, before quickly rising to his feet and letting Seonghwa get up after him. The room seemed fuller, now, the strobes moving like steamers across faces and the lights beating down on them like heat lamps. He thinks it might be because of the bodies that nearly overfilled this room. Seonghwa grabs his hand, laces their fingers together, and begins to walk back to their apartment without saying anything. Yeosang glances at him, watches the silver chains on his belt loops glint in the light. He squeezes through people moving against him, a little sweat getting on the back of his neck, but he doesn’t have it in him to grimace as he’d usually do. 

He was tired, dark shadows in his vision as they finally reached the door. 

“Yeo, Hwa! Leaving so soon?” 

Yeosang turns, the only one from the pair that heard him, and once he puts a name to the face, he tugs on Seonghwa’ s hand to get his attention. Yunho’s there, with Hongjoong beside him, drinking from a cup, and by the amount of stuff in there, Yeosang assumes it’s the punch. He smiles at him, and his eyes squint up, and being that Yeosang and Hongjoong hadn’t met each other prior to the party, Yeosang thinks it’s generous for him to look so happy to see him. He looks down, hides his grin in the shadows.

“Yeah, we’re getting tired. It’s almost...it’s...one!” Seonghwa shouts for Yunho to hear him, hooking a finger in the collar of his black shirt and pulling softly, emphasizing that it was hot in here without saying much. 

“Thank you for coming! We appreciate it. I appreciate...you! Don’t be a stranger, okay? Okay?” Yunho asks, patting Seonghwa on the shoulder, a little too hard, and poking Yeosang’s hair. 

This makes him look up, into the sweet dolce of Yunho’s grin, toothy and genuine, and he smiles back at him, even though it takes a little while. 

“Bye, Yunho.” Yeosang waves again once Seonghwa tugs on his hand, leading him through the slightly ajar apartment door. 

The walk back to their own wasn’t too bad, considering it was significantly less hot outside than in that apartment, and Yeosang feels the breeze cover over the specs of sweat that decorated his back, and over the nape of his neck. He didn’t even realize. He looks over the sky, dressed in indigo and decorated with transparent clouds. There were no stars out tonight, making the sky look vast and a little scary, even, to know that there were things hidden in their universe, but he couldn’t see them. 

It was scary.

“Hey, when we get to the house...I want you to close your eyes. Like, just shut ‘em.” Seonghwa says, voice slicing through his thoughts as he leads Yeosang up the stairs, and he almost trips over the last step when his head feels light, as if his body was made of rocks. 

“What?”

“Your eyeballs. Close them right...right now.” Seonghwa lets go of Yeosang’s hand to run the small distance to the apartment, excited, like a child on their birthday. 

Yeosang didn’t close both of his eyes, has one open to look at Seonghwa struggle with finding their keys in one of the fake rocks in the plant pot beside their door (with absolutely no plants in it, despite Yeosang telling Seonghwa it was more suspicious to have only rocks where a flower should be), and it’s only when Seonghwa turns around to catch him with one of his eyes open that he closes it. 

“Yeo!”

“Sorry!”

Seonghwa disappears for a while, and Yeosang is slowly swaying against the direction of the small breeze that blew into their space. The alcohol was wearing off a little bit, making him feel bold and gentle, clashing, yet calm. He felt like he was made up of the clearest water north of Hvar, lightly crashing within himself as he stands in pitch black. It was nice, forgetting about everything for a little, having poison ambrosia coursing through his vessels and making his paradise seem a little more placid. 

He was okay. 

“Okay, Yeo. Come.” Seonghwa peeks out of the door to see Yeosang, tranquil, despite the hot and uncomfortable spring night. He begins to walk forward with his eyes shut, leaning a little to the railing of the balcony, before his foot hits it and it makes a weird sound throughout the empty room of the nighttime. “Open your eyes, dummy.”

Yeosang replies with “oh”, and follows Seonghwa into their apartment, expecting to see the entirety of the place remodeled or a huge dog in the middle of the wood, waiting for him, because that was something Seonghwa would and could do. Seonghwa could do a lot of things, Yeosang wouldn’t put anything past him.

He hears the music.

Mellow, and candied out in the vast expanse of their living room. Yeosang flicks his eyes over to the outlets, seeing nothing, but he lands on a black pill speaker on their counter. It plays nicely, completely different than what they just came from, rattling him, but not as intensely as the EDM. And it’s only when the song pauses for a moment, that he notices the white sheet of copy paper beside it, folded to stand, with thick, black Sharpie scribbled on it. 

_ PROM? _

“What’s-“

“Kang Yeosang, will you have this...dance with me?”

Yeosang blinks, the effects of the alcohol subdued, yet he thinks he’s seeing two Seonghwas but he goes to the one in the middle, practically falling into him and holding onto his shoulders. He swallows, thinks about it, his heart beating way too fast for comfort as Seonghwa holds onto him in the middle of their living room.

“Graceful. Beautiful. I am impressed.” 

Yeosang stands up, kind of, leaning mostly on Seonghwa, his head lightly aching to the thumps of the music as it bounced across their walls and above their ceilings and circled around his chest. He’s clutching onto Seonghwa’s shirt, staring at the copy paper and rereading, rereading, and rereading, the thoughts resonating throughout his head.

“Could barely stand. Don’t think I could...dance.”

“What? You scared, Kang?”

“I am…” Yeosang thinks, and tries to stand up again, was kind of successful in reaching Seonghwa’s shoulders, “terrified, petrified, stupid-fied, mortified, by you.”

“No, the line goes like...terrified, mortified.”

“Terri-“ he burps into his own sweater, tasting nothing but cheap cherry juice and booze, his throat burning again as he grimaces, “terrified, mortified by you?”

“Terrified, mortified, petrified, stupefied by you.”

“That’s what I said.” 

By now, Yeosang realizes that he and Seonghwa were swaying slowly together, offbeat, of course, but they both found their own little rhythm within each other and they both were getting it. The door of their apartment was still open, letting in a soft breeze, but their neighbors who they knew of were still at Yunho’s party, or maybe indoors and sleeping. Yeosang didn’t pay attention. Seonghwa doesn’t speak anymore, Yeosang assumes it was being of the drinks that were still settling and opts for pressing his mouth against his hair. Yeosang’s cheek was smushed against Seonghwa’s chest, but he found purchase in his shirt and opted for holding onto him that way rather than reaching up. 

He felt strange. 

Everything was coming to him, nearly too fast. Just as spring hits, he was blooming, like the flowers that he sees in Seonghwa sometimes. There was a benign fire kindling in his chest, that reminded him of the summer swelter and shot nerves that August brought. New, but mundane. Seonghwa brought something new in him, something he never experienced before, but experienced nearly every day within this apartment. 

“Are you okay?” Seonghwa asks, his voice was delicate and Yeosang loses his breath once again. 

Everything in him was slow, yet so rushed, and he doesn’t know if he should speak or not, before something weird comes out. He thinks that he maybe should not have had all those drinks. He thinks back to his two paths, wanting to lean to the left, but the liquor makes him sway to the right, and with the way Seonghwa had leaned down to speak to his ear rather than into the air makes him blaze radiance in the night. 

“H-hey.”

He doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

“Hey.”

“Seonghwa.”

“Yeosang.”

He thinks that maybe he should stop, but there was a switch that hadn’t been flipped yet, and he knew it would be flipped by the time he woke up tomorrow and remembered this.  _ If  _ he remembered it.

“I’m f-fucking...in love…” Yeosang grips his shirt harshly, wanting to feel everything sober Yeosang would be right now, but thinks of it as a blessing that he was suppressed within himself. He decided it  _ wouldn’t  _ be a problem for Tomorrow Yeosang. “With you.”

Seonghwa giggles and slightly squeezes Yeosang closer to him, and Yeosang feels his smile on his head and he’s imagining the creases by his mouth and he thinks that maybe he should have waited until he was sober to tell him. 

Jeez.

“What?”

“I’m asshole drunk. But. I...in love. With Seonghwa.” Yeosang shuts his eyes and tries not to think about what a person who wasn’t drunk would be looking at, or hearing. 

Was that normal? What did he even tell him again, what did he  _ really  _ tell him?

“Good. It’d be b-bad if...you didn’t love Seonghwa back. I heard...from...the olive branch that h-he...thinks you’re his universe.”

Yeosang giggles and turns his already red face to hide it in Seonghwa’s shirt, and they kind of fall off the tempo of the music once again but it was okay. Seonghwa didn’t even notice the song had changed. His mind was somewhere else, with the way he shut down again. He was thinking, almost too hard, about the boy in his arms, swaying to stupid slow music while their apartment door was open, perfect invitation for a serial killer to come and steal their couch. But they were floating in space, to the music that the stars made and the atmosphere that the galaxy created, just for them.

“Hey.” Seonghwa leans back to look at Yeosang, glancing up at him and nearly falling to the side. He felt of jelly, for more reasons than one, when he looks at him. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saving me.”

Yeosang nods, takes what he said and holds it close to his chest, puts it in his back pocket to think about for later when it meant more than it did under the effects of this alcohol.

“Thank you, too.”

“For what?”

Yeosang shrugs, goes back to squishing his cheek on Seonghwa’s chest and moves his arms around his waist, opting for holding him rather than the fabric of his tee. He feels comfortable, like he would drown in him if he wasn’t too careful. Like he would burn if he got too close. But he loved the warmth.

He loved  _ Seonghwa. _

“Everything.”

He realizes that he might not have missed so much back in senior year, because he could dance with him anytime. If nights like this made him smile this much, Seonghwa would do it ten times over. And Yeosang, on the other hand, thinks that maybe this wasn’t what made it up to him. This was just a highlight in the things that Seonghwa did for him that made him want to wake up earlier, to see more of the day, to see more of him. He was the twilight that swarmed the sky right as the daytime slipped and the darkness rose, the feeling of being independently alone in a world full of people. He was new beginnings and old adventures, something that Yeosang wanted to waste the day with or make the most meaningful memories with. 

And while they’re together, making the most of the soft music and utopia that they’d built up and reached together, he starts to think that maybe he romanticized Park Seonghwa a little too much.

Just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also! i'm writing my seongi merman au and i /really/ like how it's turning out so far, so stay tuned if you're into that!
> 
> love, mandi


	8. together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!
> 
> this is the last chapter woo! while i have your attention pls vote for ateez on mubeat and answer for mnet hehe
> 
> enjoy!

The sun was dimmer this morning than it had been yesterday when Yeosang wakes up, and there was a slight glassy drizzle of spring rain kissing the windows as it brushed over the apartment. 

It wasn’t a storm this time, and Yeosang felt at peace as he sits on his bed, playing on his Nintendo and focusing on his town. It’s been days since he last checked on it, and he knew they probably thought he was a shitty mayor masked underneath their smiles and eagerness to still go fishing with him. 

He would burn down the town hall if he lived here, his stupid town of Mayoshi. 

And even in the interest of this game, as he thinks of school soon and studying with Mingi again and seeing Hongjoong and Yunho in the hallways, Seomghwa had somehow managed to creep into his head. He didn’t hear from him, yet, but that was probably because he thought he was still sleeping, considering it was a weekend and Yeosang usually didn’t know what time management was until 2pm hit on Saturdays. He sets his Nintendo onto his mattress and throws the blanket over his bear before standing to his feet, the wood flooring freezing against his bare feet. The sunlight pools in through his window, lighting up the apartment in a warm yellow, letting in heat through the glass.

It was nice.

He heads out of his bedroom, sees that the living room was empty, the kitchen even emptier. He wondered where Seonghwa was, before he remembered that the two didn’t share a bedroom, despite spending nearly every night together. He pulls up the waistband of his pajama pants, being a little too big for him, breathing in the air of the apartment as his eyes travel to the space by the door. 

He remembers that night, almost as if it was yesterday. He also remembers waking up with the world’s worst headache, but he knew what he was getting himself into the second he agreed to go to Yunho’s party. Out of it, he got some new friends to eat lunch with between classes and hang out with after school now. Hongjoong and Yunho had quickly become part of their lives recently, and despite meeting new people being something that Yeosang absolutely dreaded, he decided that those two were okay. Out of it, he got a glimpse into Seonghwa and how he felt about him, how he was and how he is now.

And in his thought of staring at the empty space in their living room, he barely hears Seonghwa leave his own bedroom, his sock-covered feet silent as he slowly walks toward him, looking into his back and trying not to make any noise. He even stopped breathing for a second.

“Morning, Bunny!” Seonghwa’s voice was heavy with sleep, with tinges of as much excitement as the morning could bring him, and Yeosang jumps a little because he really didn’t expect that so early in the morning, turning with his eyes blown wide and he almost has it in him to put his hand on his chest to try and calm down his heart.

“Hwa! What are you—“

Yeosang doesn’t really have time to finish speaking, much like he doesn’t really have much time to do anything around Seonghwa, when he holds something up in between them, his mouth curled into one of the genuine smiles that Yeosang could run through the city with. His attention is curved, thoughts completely shattered when he really looks at it.

Yeosang can’t stop staring.

It’s a canvas, universal and 8x11, coated in the prettiest pinks and lavender shades to blend out the background, thick acrylic paint glimmering in the dimness of the sunlight pouring through the window. In the middle, it was the two of them. Two figures, shadowy, yet cordial, magnetic with the way they draw Yeosang’s attention to them, with one holding the other as they danced in the middle of the canvas. There was the silhouette of their living room, and the paintings of fruit that Yeosang urged for Seonghwa to hang up, and the cabinets and the television in front of the couch they lay on. These were all very important things to Yeosang, blackened out as the focus was set on the two of them dancing. 

Seonghwa had never really been an artist, and he would tell Yeosang that the paints were a little muddled and he can’t really paint people, but Yeosang thinks this is the prettiest thing he’s ever seen.

Prettier than any work he’s done, prettier than any Gericault or van Gogh he’s ever looked at in museums.

“Aw, Hwa.” He couldn’t stop looking at it, remembering that night so vividly, feeling everything that the alcohol suppressed yet again, smiling like a child on Christmas as he holds something so simple, yet so ethereal in his hands.

“That was a night I didn’t wanna forget,” Seonghwa says, slipping his arms around Yeosang’s waist as he hugged him, staring at the painting in his hand while the other found purchase in Seonghwa’s shirt, “so I put together my drunken memories and looked up how to paint with acrylics online. I tried my best.”

“I love it. A lot. I’m gonna frame it. I’m gonna hang it up. I’m gonna scream about it outside the window to the people on the sidewalk.”

Seonghwa giggles, Yeosang feeling his chest vibrate against his cheek, resisting the urge to cry because of a painting. 

_Come on, man. It’s a painting. You do these for Seonghwa all the time._

Is this how Seonghwa feels? Jeez.

“I’ll go with you to the art store then.”

Yeosang pulls back slightly, looking over Seonghwa’s face as his hands still held onto his waist. He looks over his rosy cheeks from just waking up, his glassed eyes, his lips, his nose, everything, and thinks that he must be the luckiest in the world to have him. And he wasn’t even doing anything except for standing there, but _god,_ he’s so lucky.

“I love you.” Yeosang doesn’t even really think about it anymore, bring up his free hand to touch his face, to brush his thumb over his warm skin, to take him in.

Seonghwa leans down with a smile, lightly pressing his nose to Yeosang’s, making him giggle for the nth time this morning. His brown eyes glow in the duskiness of the living room and it reminds him of golden embers and how they’re encased in the nighttime, yet shone like twilight. Seonghwa shined so brightly it was nearly blinding, and Yeosang thinks he’s impossible, being so close to the universe and all of its stars in their little apartment.

“I love you, more, Bunny. Always.”

And Yeosang thinks it’s impossible, but he takes Seonghwa’s word for it. He smiles against him as Seonghwa leans in to kiss him, in a way that has him almost drowsy, as if he’d been tired and Seonghwa was the perfect set of blankets. He pulls him into a hug before he could really taste the sweetness Seonghwa brought to him, face buried in his ebony hair and cheek pressed against his fairy wing skin. He smiles against him, holding onto the fabric of his black sleep tee, giving him his best for what his heart could hold and his nerves could do for him.

“You know, I always thought we went well together,” Seonghwa says, voice muffled as he buries his mouth in Yeosang’s hair, eyes studying the cabinets and counters in their kitchen, having a height advantage over him to do things like this.

“Yeah. Like...soup and bread.”

“Nah, like—”

“Like the beach and sand!” Seonghwa feels Yeosang perk up underneath him, as if he hit a breakthrough and _needed_ Seonghwa to understand how cool it was before he missed out.

Seonghwa shakes his head once, couldn’t shake the smile on his face.

“I was gonna say milk and honey, but I’ll let you have that one, Bun. Like sand and the beach.”

Yeosang’s wide grin slowly falters as he listens to Seonghwa’s heartbeat in his left ear, as he’s wrapped in warmth when the sun bleeds into their apartment, as he takes him in and everything that’s been going on recently. Yeosang had always been scared to do things outside of his comfort zone, never really one for relationships and going out to party in different cities or trying live octopus. He was scared of dying, in more ways than one. 

He had always been scared that Seonghwa would kill him somehow. 

But right now, as he’s holding onto a painting that Seonghwa made for him, his best friend in the entire world for what seemed like a lifetime, hugging him as if time had stopped and there was nothing for them to do this morning, makes him think that taking risks was okay. If there were more things that brought this much exuberance to him, this much excitement and energy to try things out, he thinks that maybe he would find a piece of Seonghwa in everything else.

Like a gemstone at the bottom of the earth, Yeosang had found his treasure, all in the form of a boy with the darkest hair to set under beanies and the prettiest smile that puts the Earth to shame. His roses and lilacs, rainbows and coronas, Seonghwa was everything Yeosang had been searching for, everything he loved and everything he wanted.

He decides that they were perfect for each other, like how every beautiful pairing that he would stop and appreciate at worked out was. The beach and sand, sun and moon, milk and honey, whatever.

He would never stop appreciating them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU FOR READING!!
> 
> i appreciate everyone who took the time out of their day to go through this! i hope it wasn't boring and that you liked it :((


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